WTT Contender Tunis 2021: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai clinch men's doubles title

Indian paddlers Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai clinch the men's doubles title at the WTT Contender Tournament in Tunis on Saturday.

The Indian duo overwhelmed Emmanuel Lebesson and Alexandre Cassin of France with a scoreline of 3-1 (11-9, 4-11, 11-9, 11-6).

Sathiyan and Harmeet were part of the gold medal-winning men’s team event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. They started off in dominant fashion, with some ruthless returns during the match.

The Indian pair never looked in trouble throughout the finals. It was only during the second game that Sathiyan and Harmeet couldn't do much as the French duo snatched the game (4-11) away from the Indians.

The Indian duo made a solid comeback in the close third game. Sathiyan-Harmeet managed to take the lead to win the third 11-9. The Indians continued their good momentum with an early 4-1 three-point lead in the fourth game and pulled off a convincing win in the finals.

This was an outstanding effort from Sathiyan and Harmeet as the pair could only manage to win one match as a pair before. However, they spilled their magic on the court at the ongoing WTT Contender, Tunis.

Sathiyan and Harmeet on Friday pulled off a scintillating five-setter to defeat Nandor Ecseki and Adam Szudi of Hungary in the semifinals. The Indian duo made a remarkable comeback in the match, from a 0-2 deficit, to win 8-11, 12-14, 11-9, 11-8, 11-9.

Indian ace table tennis star G Sathiyan out of the men's singles event

Sathiyan has been on a roll in recent months. Unfortunately, he could not advance further in the men's singles and mixed doubles event of the tournament.

In the men's singles, the world No. 37 Sathiyan was outpowered by Dan Qui of Germany 11-5, 17-15, 11-6 in the quarterfinals.

Meanwhile, the Sathiyan and Manika Batra duo were ousted in the mixed doubles semifinals. The French duo of Lebesson and Jia Nan Yuan got the better of Sathiyan and Manika Batra 7-11, 9-11, 11-6, 11-9, 11-9.

The ongoing WTT Contender Tournament, Tunis is Sathiyan Gnanasekaran’s second WTT Contender title in 2021. Earlier, he bagged the mixed doubles event title alongside Manika Batra in August at WTT Contender Budapest.