Sharath-Sathiyan pair wins bronze in Belgium Open

They lost in the semifinals to the second-seeded duo from Germany, Patrick Franziska and Ricardo Walther, 3-2 to settle for a bronze. 

Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan lost the first game 7-11 but came back strongly, to win the next two games 11-7, 11-5. They, however, couldn’t maintain the momentum and lost the next two 5-11, 5-11 to miss a golden opportunity to make the final.

India’s Sanil Shetty too had a good run in the tournament, beating higher ranked players and going all the way to the quarterfinals. 

He beat seventh-seeded Cedric Nuytinck of Belgium 4-3 (11-8, 7-11, 12-10, 11-5, 2-11, 5-11, 11-9) and ninth-seeded Cheng-Ting Liao of Taipei 4-0 (8-11, 11-9, 12-10, 11-7, 11-7). 

He couldn’t, however, unravel Germany’s Ricardo Walther and missed out on a well-deserved medal. He lost 1-4 (7-11, 3-11, 11-5, 7-11, 6-11). The country’s women’s doubles pair of Manika Batra and Mouma Das too did well to make the quarters. 

They overcame the Taipei pair of Yu-Wen Huang and Yu-Jhun Li 3-2 (11-5, 9-11, 11-9, 10-12, 11-4) but went down to another Taipei pair, HsienTzu Cheng and Hsing-Yin Liu 1-3 (6-11, 11-5, 9-11, 10-12) in a closely fought encounter.

Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan showed their class on their way to the semis, first beating the Belgian team of Thibaut Darcis and Lauric Jean 3-0 (11-7, 11-6, 11-7) and then getting the better of Sweden’s Harald Andersson and Simon Arvidsson by the same margin (118, 11-8, 11-6).