Manika Batra moves to second round of ITTF World Table Tennis Championships

Doha [Qatar], May 18 (ANI): Former Commonwealth Games champion table-tennis star Manika Batra marched into the second round of the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships in Doha on Sunday.

The world number 46 got the better of Nigeria's Fatimo Bello, ranked 89th, in straight games 4-0 (11-5, 11-6, 11-8, 11-2). Her next challenge will be South Korea's 17-year-old Park Gahyeon, as per Olympics.com.

The India's top men's singles star Manav Thakkar, the world number 49 was also off to a good start, securing a 4-1 (11-3, 11-8, 6-11, 11-7, 14-12) victory over 168th-ranked Timothy Choi of New Zealand.

Teenager Ankur Bhattacharjee, bowed out in the first round after a loss to Hong Kong's world No. 129 Lam Siu Hang by 4-1 (11-4, 7-11, 9-11, 10-12, 8-11).

Coming to the mixed doubles competition, Manush Shah and Diya Chitale defeated Algeria's Mehdi Bouloussa and Malissa Nasri easily, winning 3-0 (11-2, 11-7, 11-6). They had earlier won the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender Tunis mixed doubles title earlier this year and made it to the second round of their singles competition on Saturday.

Coming to the men's doubles, Harmeet Desai and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran were eliminated in the first round itself, losing 3-1 (9-11, 12-10, 14-16, 10-12) to Austria's Maciej Kolodziejczyk and Moldova's Vladislav Ursu.

Desai also failed to make much impact in mixed doubles as along with Yashaswini Ghorpade, he dominated French pair Thibault Poret and Leana Hochart 2-0 but fumbled three match points to ultimately lose 3-2 (11-8, 11-6, 10-12, 8-11, 10-12). (ANI)

(The story has come from a syndicated feed and has not been edited by the Tribune Staff.)