Saudi Smash 2024: India's doubles campaign comes to an end after Yashaswini Ghorpade and Harmeet Desai go down in the quarterfinals

The Saudi Smash 2024, underway at the Sports Hall King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is witnessing participation from all the top paddlers in the world. The USD 2,000,000 tournament taking place from May 1 to May 11 saw Indian paddlers cause several upsets on Monday.

However, India’s campaign in the doubles category came to an end on May 7. Yashaswini Ghorpade and Harmeet Desai lost to the top seeds Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha in the quarterfinals of the mixed doubles category, while Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee and Manush Shah and Manav Thakkar went down in the round of 16 of the women’s doubles and men’s doubles events, respectively.

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A closer look at the results of the Saudi Smash 2024 (Indians only)

After pulling off a phenomenal win against the World No. 6 duo of Maria Xiao and Alvaro Robles yesterday, beating them 11-5, 5-11, 3-11, 11-7, 11-7, the young Indian duo of Yashaswini Ghorpade and Harmeet were up against the top seeds Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha in the quarterfinals.

Despite putting up an impressive fight, the Chinese pair were too strong for Desai and Ghorpade and they got the better of the Indians in straight sets. The final scoreline of the match was 6-11, 10-12, 4-11 in favor of Chuqin and Yingsha.

Asian Games medalists Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee took on Kim Nayeong and Miyu Nagasaki in their pre-quarterfinals encounter. The Indian pair got off to a good start, winning the first set 11-6. They narrowly went down in the second game, 9-11, before clinching the third 12-10.

The fourth set saw Nayeong and Nagasaki change their strategy, and with reduced errors and some impressive shots from the duo, they won the fourth and fifth sets 6-11, 8-11, respectively, to seal the match. The final score of the five-set battle was 11-6, 9-11, 12-10, 6-11, 8-11.

India’s only men’s doubles pair of Manush Shah and Manav Thakkar lost to Lubomir Pistej and Chan Baldwin in a thrilling five-set match. After edging past Pisteja and Baldwin 20-18 in the first game, Shah and Thakkar lost the next two. However, they fought back to win the fourth set 11-9 to level terms and take things to the final game. The decider saw their opponents just clinch the set 7-11 to win the match.

India’s only remaining paddler in the tournament is women’s singles star Manika Batra. Batra stunned World No. 2 Wang Manyu yesterday and will now take on Germany’s Nina Mittelham on May 8.