CHENNAI: Fourth seeds Harmeet Desai and Yashaswini Ghorpade sealed their mixed doubles final berth comfortably while Sathiyan G registered a hard-fought win to reach his first ever men’s singles quarterfinals of the WTT Star Contender Chennai 2026 at the Tamil Nadu Physical Education and Sports University on Saturday.
Desai and Ghorpade were cruising in the all-Indian mixed doubles semifinal, beating wild card Payas Jain and Syndrela Das 3-0 (11-9, 11-6, 11-9).
They will now face Romanian pair and second seeds Eduard Ionescu and Bernadette Szocs, who advanced after third seeds Oh Junsung of Korea and Miku Nagasaki of Japan conceded the match while trailing 1-2.
This mixed doubles tie will bring familiar faces from the Ultimate Table Tennis franchise league. Ghorpade and Szocs were part of the title-winning U Mumba team in June 2025.
Earlier, Sathiyan kept Indian hopes alive in men’s singles as he fought back from a 1-2 deficit to beat Ionescu 3-2 (9-11, 11-3, 10-12, 11-7, 11-5) to advance. He will now face Czechia’s Lubomir Jancarik, who got the better of India’s Manush Shah 3-1 (11-4, 13-11, 5-11, 13-11).
Meanwhile, Snehit Suravajjula’s giant-killing run came to an end when he went down 3-1 (11-6, 10-12, 15-13, 11-7) against top seed Oh Junsung.
The Korean, however, has given a walkover to Frenchman Thibault Poret in the quarterfinals after he injured himself during the mixed doubles semifinals.
India’s challenge in women’s singles also came to and end after qualifier Nithya Mani lost 3-1 (9-11, 11-5, 11-6, 11-8) against Chinese Taipei’s fourth seed Cheng I-Ching in the pre-quarterfinals.
