“When You Really Want to Win, You Win More”- IM Vantika Agrawal
Vantika was part of the women's team comprising Harika Dronavalli, R Vaishali, Divya Deshmukh, and Tania Sachdev, which won gold at the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad .
The Indian men’s team started its campaign in the Thomas Cup finals in Bangkok, Thailand by thrashing lowly Germany 5-0 in its opening Group C match on Sunday.
India, who have Canada and Chinese Taipei besides Germany in the four-team Pool C, blanked Germany with World Championship bronze medallist Lakshya Sen giving them a perfect start by beating Max Weisskirchen 21-16, 21-13.
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Sen, who enjoyed a 3-1 advantage in head-to-head over his rival, was totally in control and never allowed Weisskirchen any chances.
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The top doubles pair of Satwaksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty made it 2-0 for India by beating Jones Ralfy Jansen and Marvin Seidel in tough three games 21-15, 10-21, 21-13. Kidambi Srikanth too needed three games to subdue Kai Schaefer, coming back from a game down to beat 18-21, 21-9, 21-11 to make 3-0.
M.R Arjun and Dhruv Kapila defeated Bjarne Geiss and Jan Colin Voelker in straight games, 25-23, 21-15 to make it 4-0. And H.S Prannoy rounded off the match in an emphatic manner for India with a 21-9, 21-9 win against Matthias Kicklitz.
India will next play Canada in their second match in the group on Monday.
(Inputs from IANS)
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