WTT Contender Tunis table tennis: G Sathiyan wins while Manika and Sharath disappoints

India's two Top-ranked table tennis players Manika Batra and Sharath Kamal, lost their opening-round women's and men's singles matches, respectively. Meanwhile, India's Sathiyan Gnanasekaran made it to the second round of the WTT Contender Tunis 2021 table tennis tournament on Wednesday.

Nina Mittelham, the world No. 33 from Germany, beat the 58th-ranked Manika Batra comfortably by a 3-1 (6-11, 12-10, 8-11, 3-11) margin. Later, Achanta Sharath Kamal went down fighting in the men's singles.

The fifth-seeded Sharath Kamal went to a face-off in a gruelling five-setter against Vitor Ishiy of Brazil. But eventually, he lost the round of 32 clashes 3-2 (5-11, 11-5, 9-11, 11-8, 12-10).

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Sathiyan Gnanasekaran was the only Indian to make it to the next round in the singles category.

The world No. 37 and eighth-seeded G Sathiyan advanced to the Round of 16 with a 3-0 win over Alvaro Robles of Spain. The match, however, was closer than the scoreline suggests.

Only two points separated both players in all three games as G Sathiyan prevailed 11-9, 11-9, 11-9.

Both of India's men's doubles pairs also registered wins in the first round.

Achanta Sharath Kamal and Manav Thakkar defeated David Serdaroglu and Alexander Chen of Austria 3-1 while Harmeet Desai and G Sathiyan handed a 3-2 loss to Germany's Tobias Hippler and Kilian Ort.