Asian championships: Thakkar falls short vs Long

Pyeongchang (S Korea), Sep 8

India’s Manav Thakkar had his moments against Chinese legend Ma Long before going down fighting in a Round-of-16 men’s singles contest at the Asian Table Tennis Championships here today.

The 23-year-old, who suffered a 0-3 defeat, was expectedly nervous going into the match against arguably the greatest paddler of all time but ended up giving a good account of himself as Long won 11-9 12-10 11-5.

On a day when the seasoned G Sathiyan and Sharath Kamal lost their Round-of-32 matches, another heartening performance came from the 170th-ranked Ayhika Mukherjee, who stretched Chen Xingtong of China to five games, but the Chinese won 2-11 6-11 11-8 11-9 11-3 in the women’s singles Round of 32. In the men’s doubles last-8, Thakkar and Manush Shah lost to Fan Zhendong and Lin Gaoyuan 5-11 3-11 5-11. The women’s doubles duo of Ayhika and Sutirtha Mukherjee also suffered a 5-11 11-13 10-12 loss to Wang Manyu and Chen Meng.