Ayhika Mukherjee storms into main draw of WTT Grand Smash

Indian table tennis player Ayhika Mukherjee stormed into the main draw of the first-ever WTT Grand Smash tournament in Singapore on Wednesday.

The WTT Grand Smash, which starts this year, will be the highest-tier event in the annual calendar. A total of four WTT Grand Smash tournaments will be held every year in different cities.

Ayhika Mukherjee won three qualifying rounds to make it to the women’s singles main draw. In the third qualifier, she overturned a 1-2 deficit to beat Serbia's Sabina Surjan 3-2 (12-10, 5-11, 6-11, 11-9, 11-7).

In the first two rounds, Ayhika beat former European champion Daniela Dodean of Romania and Tokyo Olympian Debora Vivarelli of Italy respectively.

She joins Manika Batra in the women's singles main draw of the WTT Grand Smash. In men's singles, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Achanta Sharath Kamal have secured direct entries into the main draw.

Read: Ayhika Mukherjee elated with first WTT medal, hopes to have good Singapore Smash event

Indians crash out of WTT Grand Smash qualifiers

Meanwhile, Manav Thakkar, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Harmeet Desai, Archana Kamath, Madhurika Patkar and Anthony Amalraj bit the dust in the qualifiers. Archana Kamath will have a second chance to make amends as she is in women's doubles too, partnering Manika Batra.

Sutirtha lost 1-3 to Mateja Jeger of Croatia while Harmeet Desai was blanked 0-3 by Japan’s Shunsuke Togami. Anthony Amalraj was eliminated in the first round after a 1-3 loss to Liao Cheng-ting of Chinese Taipei.

Manika Batra and Sathiyan will team up in mixed doubles while Sathiyan and Sharath will join forces in men's doubles.

The main draw will take place from March 11-20. It has a 64-player draw for singles (men and women), a 24-pair draw for doubles, and a 16-pair draw for mixed doubles.

All the winners will pocket 2,000 ITTF Table Tennis world ranking points.