Busan: The Indian men’s and women’s sides registered contrasting wins in their final group games to progress to the knock-out phase of the Word Table Tennis Team Championships here on Tuesday.
While the Indian women’s team pulled off a thrilling come-from-behind 3-2 victory over Spain, the men’s side brushed aside New Zealand 3-0. The Indian women’s team, the stronger side on paper, were pushed against the wall but found a way to scrape past the Spaniards after Sreeja Akula and Manika Batra lost the first two singles of the tie.
After Ayhika Mukherjee kept India in the contest with a win in the third singles, Manika and Sreeja returned to get the job done in the fourth and fifth singles.
Sreeja lost the opening singles to Maria Xiao 9-11, 11-9, 11-13, 4-11. Sofia-Xuan Zhang made it 2-0 for Spain with a 13-11, 6-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-7 win over India’s top ranked player Manika.
Ayhika kept India alive in the contest by getting past Elvira Rad 11-8, 11-13, 11-8, 9-11, 11-4 in the third singles.
Manika then returned to blank Maria in the fourth singles 11-9, 11-2, 11-4 to make it 2-2. Sreeja sealed the tie with an 11-6, 11-13, 11-6, 11-3 win over Sofia-Xuan.
The Indian women finished second behind China in Group 1 with three wins from four games. Their only loss, albeit a narrow one, came against the mighty Chinese after Ayhika and Sreeja stunned world number one and two, Sun Yinghsa and Wang Yidi, respectively.