CHENNAI: India's premier mixed doubles pair of Diya Chitale and Manush Shah rallied to beat World No 4 pair Chun Ting Wong and Hoi Kem Doo of Hong Kong to enter the semifinals early on Friday.
For the duo, it is a winning start in what is a long day. Chitale will now pair with Yashaswini Ghorpade for the women’s doubles’ quarterfinals. Meanwhile Manush, pairing with Manav Thakkar, lost to the Japanese top pair of Tomakazu Harimoto and Hiroto Shinozuka.
The World No 8 pair will face Chinese World No 1 pair of Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha later in the day.
The pair, currently ranked No 8, got off to a winning start against their opponents. However, in the second set, they were pegged back to 1-1. Then, the duo upped the gears, and went on to win the next two games and seal the match 3-1.
The duo, who historically became the first Indians to make it to the WTT finals last year, will continue India’s medal streak in the Asian Games. In the 2023 Games in Hangzhou, it was the women’s doubles pair of Sutirtha and Ayhika Mukherjee winning bronze.
In the lead-up to the Asian Games, the pair took part in the WTT Contenders in Almaty, Kazakhstan as top seeds. However, they bowed out in the quarterfinals.
This win is an amendment of sorts. However, given their long day, they wouldn’t want to delve into it too much. In fact, that is what Chitale believed was important. “As soon as I'm playing one event and when that gets over I think it's very important to switch off from that and to start preparing for the next match irrespective of the result. That is something that's going to be very very important in such a big event like the Asian Games,” she had told this daily before the quadrennial bash.
Meanwhile, the men’s doubles pair of Sathiyan G and Harmeet Desai also won their round three tie against Indonesian pair of Affan Pratama and Muhammad Negara 3-2.