Yashaswini Ghorpade, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Harmeet Desai made it to the singles main draw of the first ever World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender Goa, as the two-day qualifiers concluded here at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium.
Teenager Yashaswini Ghorpade led the qualifying charge, as all the three Indians took out higher ranked opponents across two matches in the day to make it a memorable first qualifier of a home WTT event.
Yashaswini, the youngest of the three qualifiers was also the first to go through in the women’s singles. She took out two Koreans on her way, first Cheonhui Joo, ranked 103, in round two and then Nayeong Kim, ranked 104.
While it took her four games to beat Joo (3-1:11-7,11-6,9-11,11-8), Kim proved tougher and stretched the youngster to the full five games for a 3-2 (11-6,1-11,5-11,11-5,11-7) result. Yashaswini is currently ranked 196 in the world.
The next Indian to go through was Sutirtha Mukherjee, presently ranked 147 in the world. She first blanked Chinese Taipei’s Li Yu-Jhun (world rank 92) 3-0 (11-9,11-8,11-6) in round two and then beat Korea world number 107 Eunhye Lee 3-1 (11-9,6-11,11-6,11-8), in round three to make the round of 64. While she meets compatriot Suhana Saini in the main draw, Yashaswini will be up against world number 38 Japanese Miyu Nagasaki.
Harmeet Desai was the lone Indian to qualify for the main draw from the men’s singles qualifiers. He was stretched to the hilt by both his opponents. First, German world number 99 Fanbo Meng took him the distance (3-2:11-5,11-13,11-9,9-11,9-11) and then 84th ranked Argentine Horacio Cifuentes, forced another 3-2 (11-7,9-11,11-7,8-11,11-5) result from the 29-year-old senior paddler from Surat.
In other qualifying results, Korea also grabbed two berths in the women’s singles, while Thailand bagged one when Orawan Paranang put it across India’s Reeth Tennison 3-1 (5-11,11-7,11-1,11-7) in round three of the qualifiers. England, Turkey and Hong Kong, China, took the other three women’s singles qualifying berths.
Korea also bagged two qualifying berths in the men’s singles, while Hong Kong, China, and Belgium also bagged a berth each. Hungarian Bence Majoros, ranked 112 in the world, caused an upset in the final game of the evening, when he beat Japan’s Mizuki Oikawa 3-2 (9-11,11-7,15-13,4-11,13-11). Japan however, caused the upset of the day, when Yuta Tanaka took out the highest ranked player in the qualifying draw, Xu Yingbin of China in four games (3-1: 11-9, 10-12,11-6,14-12) to make the main draw.
Another interesting men’s third-round qualifying match saw two young bespectacled athletes fight it out. 16-year-old French talent Felix Lebrun emerged the winner at the end of it, to land the prize of a main draw berth when he defeated Manush Shah of India 3-1 (12-10,5-11,11-8,11-6) in their round three qualifier. The main draw matches come thick and fast from Wednesday, with the finals slated for March 4 and March 5.