World No. 4 Tomokazu Harimoto of Japan and Hina Hayata, World No. 5 from Japan, will headline the men’s and women’s singles at the WTT Star Contender Chennai, set to be held at the Nehru Indoor Stadium from March 25 to 30. Other star paddlers include Hugo Calderano (Brazil), Omar Assar (Egypt), Dimitrij Ovtcharov (Germany), … Read more
Five Indian pairs have been seeded in the doubles (men’s, women’s & mixed) section of the WTT Star Contender table tennis tournament to be held in Chennai, set to be held at the Nehru Indoor Stadium from March 25 to 30.. The duo of Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah is seeded No. 1 in men’s … Read more
Achanta Sharath Kamal learnt the sport of Table Tennis in hometown Chennai and then played it professionally for over two decades. Life came full circle for the five-time Olympian as that journey ended with a 3-0 (9-11, 8-11, 9-11) loss to compatriot Snehit Suravajalla in the round of 16 at the WTT Star Contender here … Read more
For a better part of Achanta Sharath Kamal’s two-decade-long career, everyone else who became India’s top-ranked male table tennis player at any point had an invisible asterisk in front of their names. Sharath’s ability to perform well at major events and the magnitude of his achievements —15 medals across the Asian and Commonwealth Games — … Read more
The Indian table tennis fans first got the chance to watch Tomokazu Harimoto when he came for the India Open in 2017 as the junior world champion. Harimoto, then a 13-year-old, was regarded as a child prodigy and he lived up to the expectations by making it all the way to the final. In the … Read more
Manav Thakkar’s historic run at the WTT Star Contender event in Chennai ended with a 1-3 (10-12, 9-11, 11-7, 7-11) defeat to Thibault Poret in the semifinals on Sunday. The 20-year-old Frenchman edged out local hope Thakkar, the first-ever Indian man to reach the last-four stage at this level, in half an hour on the … Read more
Teenagers Miwa Harimoto and Oh Jun-sung clinched the women’s and men’s singles titles, respectively, at the WTT Star Contender event at the Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai on Sunday. Second seed Harimoto took down 13th seed Honoka Hashimoto 4-2 (9-11, 11-3, 11-8, 11-9, 10-12, 11-7) in an all-Japanese summit clash to clinch the fourth and … Read more
For Puerto Rico, what Monica Puig is to tennis or how much Jasmine Camacho-Quinn means for track and field, Adriana Diaz is that athlete for table tennis. It is no mean feat for a small Caribbean island with a population of just 32 lakh to have a top athlete in table tennis, a sport dominated … Read more
Manav Thakkar became India’s first-ever man to reach the semifinals of a WTT Star Contender event with a come-from-behind win over Korea’s Lim Jong-hoon in Chennai on Saturday. Down one game to two and trailing 2-6 in the fourth, Thakkar had an incredible streak of eighteen points to turn the match on its head. The … Read more
Achanta Sharath Kamal put on a strategic masterclass to beat World No. 34 Nicholas Lum of Australia 3-0 (11-8, 11-8, 11-9) and reach the round of 16 at the WTT Star Contender Chennai, the last event of his professional career, on Friday. Barely 14 hours after his first-round win over compatriot and qualifier Anirban Ghosh, … Read more