Sharath Kamal-G. Sathiyan and Manav Thakkar-Harmeet Desai pairs qualify for main draw of Hungarian Open Table Tennis

What's the story?

The Indian table tennis doubles pairs of Sharath Kamal-Gnansekaran Sathiyan and Manav Thakkar-Harmeet Desai have made it to the main draw of the 2020 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Tour Hungarian Open.

In case you didn't know

The qualification stage for the Hungarian Open is being staged in Budapest, Hungary with the main draw starting from 20th February. The Indian players are trying to get through the qualification event to make it to the main draw both in the singles and doubles events.

The Hungarian Open is a good preparation for the Indian tables tennis stars as they aim to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics through the Asian qualification tournament to be held in April. Having failed to qualify for the Olympics in the team events, the Indian paddlers would be keen to make it to the Olympics in the individual events. The qualification tournament for the individual events would be held from April 6th to 12th in Bangkok.

Heart of the matter

India's Sharath Kamal and G. Sathiyan qualified for the main draw in the men’s doubles category of the ITTF Hungarian Open after defeating the Turkish pair of Ibrahim Gunduz and Abdullah Yigenler in the second preliminary round in Budapest on Wednesday.

The Indian duo did not start well and lost the first game 9-11. But they bounced back in style to take the next 3 games 11-4, 11-8, 11-4 to win the match 3-1 and with it qualified for the main draw.

In another doubles encounter, India's Harmeet Desai and Manav Thakkar came through a tricky match against the Swedish pair of Truls Moregard and Jon Persson to qualify for the main draw.

The Indian pair won the first game 11-7 but lost momentum to lose the next 2 games 8-11, 6-11. They then staged a comeback to take the next 2 games 11-5, 11-8 to with it the match with a 3-2 scoreline.

In a post-match interview, the pair expressed happiness that they were able to come back from 4-8 down in the final game to claim the victory.

“It was a very important victory for us, Truls is a very intelligent player so we knew before that was going to be a really hard and close match and we needed to stay focused and concentrated until the end. We won the first game, then we lost the next two – after we changed, we started to play a more long and open game because with the short receives and balls we lost a lot of points. In the fifth game, we were 4-8 down but we managed to change the score and win the match.”

Prior to this match, Thakkar and Desai had defeated the Hungarian duo of Csaba Andras and Oliver Both 11-8, 11-8, 9-11, 11-4 in the first qualification round.

In the men's singles event, Sathiyan has got a direct entry in the main draw owing to his World Ranking of 30. The other Indians had to go through the qualifying rounds to make it to the main draw.

Desai won his first 2 matches in the qualifying event against Thailand’s Padasak Tanviriyavechakul and Chen Chien-an but will have to get through the final preliminary round encounter to make it to the main draw. The other Indian singles players - Sharath Kamal, Sanil Shetty and Manav Thakkar, crashed out in the qualification rounds.

In the women's singles, Manika Batra and Sutirtha Mukherjee have made it to the final qualification round. World No. 67 Batra breezed past Belgian Margo Delgraf in straight games (4-0) and Italian Jamila Laurenti 9-11, 11-2, 11-7, 11-4, 11-3 in the first two rounds of qualification. World No. 160 Sutirtha beat Sweden’s Linda Bergstrom 4-0 and followed it up with a 11-5, 4-11, 7-11, 11-5, 11-9, 11-8 victory over Marie Migot of France. But Krittwika Roy and Madhurika Patkar crashed out in the qualification rounds.

What's next?

The Sharath-Sathiyan pair will be taking on Togami Shunsukei and Yukiya Uda of Japan in the pre-quarterfinals encounter while Desai-Thakkar would be facing up against Hong Kong’s Lam Siu Hang and Ng Pak Nam.

Manika will be up against Aikaterini Toliou of Greece while Sutirtha will face Britt Eerland of Netherlands in their last qualification round matches.

Sharath and Manika would also be participating in the mixed doubles category and the duo will take on Adam Szudi and Szanadra Pergel of Hungary in the round of 16.

The Indian paddlers will be hoping to put up a good display in the remainder of the tournament as it will be a big confidence booster for them before the Olympic qualifiers.