Table tennis WTT Star Contender Doha: Archana, Sreeja storm into second round, Harmeet ousted

Sreeja Akula and Archana Girish Kamath stormed into the second round while Harmeet Desai lost his first round match at the ongoing WTT Star Contender table tennis tournament in Doha on Wednesday.

Sreeja Akula got the better of Slovak Republic's Tatiana Kukulkova 3-2 (11-5, 8-11, 11-3, 9-11, 11-9) in a marathon five setter. Archana Girish Kamath beat Great Britain's Tin-Tin Ho 3-1 (11-7, 6-11, 13-11, 11-8) in the first round.

Sreeja Akula will meet Korea's Suh Hyowon in the second round. Archana Girish Kamath will square off against Canada's Mo Zhang in the second round.

Both opponents of the Indian women's singles table tennis players received a first round bye.

India's second-best table tennis player Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, who received a bye in the first round, will play his second round match on Thursday. He will meet Croatian table tennis player Andrej Gacina. The Croatian got the better of Qatar's Mohammed Abdulwahhab 3-0 (11-5, 11-7, 11-5).

In the men's singles, Harmeet Desai fell in the first hurdle, losing 0-3 to Paraguay's Marcelo Aguirre in the first round. The Paraguan table tennis player triumphed 11-8, 12-10, 11-8.

Indian table tennis doubles pairs falter

Earlier in the men's doubles, the Indian table tennis pairs of Sathiyan/Anthony Amalraj and Harmeet Desai/Manav Thakkar endured losses in their respective first-round matches.

Sathiyan and Amalraj were beaten 1-3 (5-11, 11-9, 5-11, 6-11) by the Japanese pair Kazuhiro Yoshimura and Yuto Kizukuri. The pair of Harmeet and Manav were blanked 3-0 (11-5, 11-7, 11-8) by another Japanese pair Yukiya Uda and Shunsuke Togami.

The WTT Star Contender table tennis tournament rounded off a horrible event for Manav Thakkar, who failed to make an impact in any of the categories he played in. After being outplayed in the qualifiers in the men's singles, he couldn't make it count in the men's doubles or the mixed doubles event either.

In the mixed doubles, Indian table tennis pair Manav Thakkar and Archana Girish Kamath were ousted in the first round, failing to make it to the quarterfinals. The Indian table tennis pair were beaten by Hong Kong's Wong Chun Ting and Doo Hoi Kem 3-0 (8-11, 7-11, 8-11).