Star paddler G Sathiyan won both his singles, including the one against world number 9 Dang Qiu, to script India’s stunning 3-1 win over second seeds Germany in the group stage of the World Table Tennis Championships here on Sunday.
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World number 37 Sathiyan won two gruelling deciders, first against 36th ranked Duda Benedikt (11-13, 4-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-9) before edging out Germany’s highest-ranked player Qiu (10-12, 7-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-9).
In both the matches, Sathiyan staged a strong fightback after losing the first two games.
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Smashing victory today as we pulled off a massive upset by taking down the WR 2 & Olympic silver medalist team GERMANY 3-1 in the ongoing World Team Championships 💪 pic.twitter.com/ile6Hdmi5Y- Advertisement -
— Sathiyan Gnanasekaran OLY (@sathiyantt) October 2, 2022
“The match against Qiu was definitely much tougher. He is a top-10 player. It was a high quality match as well,” Sathiyan told PTI.
India number 2 Harmeet Desai had lost the second singles to Qui 1-2 (7-11, 9-11, 13-11, 3-11) before Manav Thakkar helped his team go 2-1 up with a 3-1 (13-11, 6-11, 11-8, 12-10) win over higher-ranked Ricardo Walther.
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The 17th-ranked India had beaten Uzbekistan in their opening group game on Saturday. They need to finish in the top two to advance to the pre-quarterfinals.
In the women’s draw, India recorded their first win of the group stage with a 3-0 result over Czech Republic. The Manika Batra-led side had lost to Germany on Saturday.
Manika defeated Hana Matelova 3-1 (11-6, 11-6, 8-11, 12-10 ) in the first singles before Akula Sreeja and Diya Chitale won their singles against Marketa Sevcikova and Katerina Tomanovska, 3-0 and 3-1 respectively.
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It was a close affair between Diya and Katerina before the Indian prevailed 11-13, 15-13, 12-10, 14-12. Down two game points in the fourth game, Diya relied on her serve to make it 10-10 before winning a spectacular rally.
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Katerina made it 12-12 before the India got the couple of points she needed to complete a fine win.
