BUSAN: Indian women’s team eased past Uzbekistan while the men endured successive defeats with the loss to South Korea in the World Table Tennis Team Championships here on Monday.
Ayhika Mukherjee and Sreeja Akula were rested from the rubber, providing an opportunity to Archana Kamath and Diya Chitale. They both won their respective singles while senior teammate Manika Batra also had it easy against her opponent to make it a 3-0 win for India.
Archana defeated Rimma Gufranov 11-7, 11-3, 11-6, while Manika stormed past Markhabo Magdieva 11-7, 11-4, 11-1.
Diya on the other hand faced tough resistance before prevailing over Rozalina Khadjieva 11-6, 10-12, 11-4, 11-6.
Having started off their campaign with a 2-3 loss to China, Indian women’s team now have secured two wins on the trot to occupy second spot in the Group 1 standings.
They will next face Spain in their concluding Group 1 league fixture on Tuesday. They earlier defeated Hungary 3-2.
The men’s team of veteran Sharath Kamal, reigning national champion Harmeet Desai and G Sathiyan lost their respective singles to go down meekly in its third group stage tie against third seeds Korea.
Harmeet, who is India’s top-ranked player at 67, went down to world number 14 Jang Woojin 4-11, 10-12, 8-11.
Sathiyan was then brushed aside by world number 16 Lim Jonghoon 5-11, 7-11, 7-11.
Sharath managed to put up a fight, taking the second game but couldn’t capitalise on the momentum losing 9-11, 11-8, 6-11, 5-11 to Lee San Su.
After winning their opening tie against Chile, Indian men lost 1-3 to Poland on Sunday.