NEW DELHI: It was a day to forget for the Indians at the ITTF World Team Qualification Tournament. Both the men’s and women’s table tennis teams suffered defeats at the hands of Slovenia and Romania, respectively, in Gondomar, Portugal on Friday.
A win would have ensured a place for both teams in the Tokyo Olympics. But it was not to be as European champions Romania edged past Manika Batra & Co 3-2 while in a shock result, the men tripped up 1-3 against 11th seeds Slovenia. But all is not lost yet as both teams will now battle it out with seven other countries in a new plate group in a knockout format. The winner will make the cut for Tokyo.
Not many were expecting the women’s team to overcome the fifth seeds in the Round of 16. But after getting past Sweden in the previous round, there was optimism in the Indian ranks. The team decided to play Sutirtha Mukherjee in place of Archana Kamath.
Sutirtha and Ayhika Mukherjee started off proceedings and took the match to a deciding fifth game. The pair of Daniela Monteiro and Elizabeta Samara ultimately proved stronger, as they won 3-2.
The star of India’s good run in 2018, Manika Batra was up next and she stunned World No 19 Bernadette Szocs 3-1. Samara then came back to pip Ayhika 3-1. Sutirtha was up next against Szocs. It was expected to be a cakewalk for the Romanian, but she came a cropper against the paddler from Bengal. Despite the Romanian leading at one stage, it ended 3-2 and with Manika to face World No 134 Monteiro, it seemed India had a chance to do the unthinkable.
However, Monteiro kept attacking the Indian. Despite Manika coming back strong in the third, the European champs prevailed for a 3-2 overall win, powered by Monteiro’s 3-1 triumph. "There was tension during the last two matches. Sutirtha’s win gave us a lot of confidence but unfortunately, we could not get over the line," Ayhika said from Portugal.
Up next for the women is France. The strongest of the remaining seven are Republic of Korea. “We can’t brood over this result for too long. Nobody expected us to play this sort of table tennis and the main thing to remember is we still have a chance. We need to regroup and focus on our match against France,” Ayhika added.
The men’s team were expected to go through and in the opening doubles featuring Achanta Sharath Kamal and Harmeet Desai versus Deni Kozul and Bojan Tokic, the Indian pair won 3-0. It seemed like a foregone conclusion at that stage.
Darko Jorgic, however, had other ideas as he won in straight games against India’s top-ranked G Sathiyan. He came back to finish the job by beating Sharath 3-1. In the intervening match, Tokic beat Harmeet despite being a game down.
“Credit to Slovenia. It was more of a case of them playing well than us playing badly. Darko played was good in both matches while Bojan acquitted himself well under pressure. We are disappointed but we need to rejuvenate and focus on the match tomorrow against the Czech Republic,” Sathiyan opined.