Chengdu (China), Oct 2 (UNI) The Indian men’s team on Sunday scripted one of the biggest upsets after beating second seeds Germany 3-1 in their Group 2 tie at the ITTF World Team Championships Finals here.
This is India’s second straight win in the Group after beating Uzbekistan in the first tie on Saturday
The Indian men sit second in Group 2 with four points. They will next face Kazakhstan on Monday.
On the other hand, Indian women team registered their first victory of the tournament with a 3-0 win over the Czech Republic in the second tie of Group 5.
In their opening group stage tie, India women women’s team fought valiantly but lost 2-3 to world No 5 ranked team Germany on Saturday.
In the men's team event, India’s top-ranked paddler Sathiyan Gnanasekaran was the star of the contest as he pulled off two wins over higher-ranked players in the tie.
Sathiyan came back from two games down to beat Benedikt Duda 3-2 (11-13, 4-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-9) and gave India a 1-0 lead.
Germany bounced back the second match as world No.9 Qiu Dang defeated Desai 3-1 (7-11, 9-11, 13-11, 3-11).
Manav Thakkar then levelled it up for India, beating Ricardo Walther 3-1 (13-11, 6-11, 11-8, 12-10) in the third rubber.
In-form Sathiyan then beat Qiu Dang 3-2 (10-12, 7-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-9) to win India the match in thrilling fashion.
In the women's team, star paddler Manika Batra won the first match 3-1 (11-6, 11-6, 10-12, 11-8) over Hana Matelova.
National champion Sreeja Akula then stretched the lead with a 3-0 (11-5, 11-3, 11-8) win over Marketa Sevcikova.
Teenager Diya Chitale secured a 3-1 (11-13, 15-13, 12-10, 14-12) win over Katerina Tomanovska to seal the tie for India.
The women’s team now sits second in Group 5 and will face Egypt next.
India need to finish in the top two in the group stage to progress to the round of 16.
UNI BAV