As many as four Indian pairs qualified for the main draw of the men’s and women’s doubles in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender Goa, being played at the Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor stadium, here on Monday.
Suhana Saini and Yashaswini Ghorpade and Poymantee Baisya and Anannya Basak, were the two pairs who made it in the women’s doubles. In the men’s doubles Manush Shah and Snehit Suravajulla made it through to the round of 16 along with lucky losers Jeet Chandra and Ronit Bhanja.
Four mixed doubles pairs had already made the main draw in the morning session of day one of the two-day qualifiers. Day two on Tuesday, will see a fight for eight spots each in the men’s and women’s singles at the tournament hosted by Stupa Sports Analytics.
Among Indians who won their round one men’s and women’s singles qualifiers were Harmeet Desai, Sanil Shetty, Manav Thakkar, Shubh Goel, Akash Pal, Prithoki Chakraborti, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Swastika Ghosh.
In the women’s doubles qualifiers, the biggest upset was caused by Koreans Nayeong Kim and Cheonhul Joo, when they took out qualifier top seeds Suthasini Sawettabut and Orawan Paranang 3-1 in a round two match. They beat the Thai pair 7-11,11-6,11-7,11-4 to move to the round of 16. The Koreans had beaten India’s Gayatri Choudhary and Anjali Rohilla in the morning session in round one.
In another round two women’s doubles qualifying matches, third seeded Indians Suhana Saini and Yashaswini Ghorpade were up against the experienced Korean pair of Kim Hayeong and Lee Eunhye.
In a hard-fought clash, the Indian youngsters gave a good account of themselves and prevailed 3-2 (9-11,15-13,11-7,9-11,11-5) to move to the main draw.
They will be joined there by a second Indian qualifying pair, that of Poymantee Baisya and Anannya Basak. The Indians got a walkover against the Portuguese pair of Jeini Shao and Fu Yu. In round one, they had overcome another Indian pairing of Reeth Tennison and Swastika Ghosh.
Also moving into the main draw were fourth seeds from Honk Kong, China, Li Ching Wan and Zhu Chengzhu, who easily overcame India’s Prachi Mazumder and Avisha Karmakar 3-0 (11-9,11-6,11-7) in their round two qualifier.
In the men’s doubles, Cedric Nuytinck and Adrien Rassenfosse of Belgium, took the final qualifying spot of the evening. They beat Koreans Ganghyeon Park and Dongsoo Kang 3-2 (11-7,4-11,9-11,11-8,11-8) in the final match of the day.
The Indian cheer was provided by Manush Shah and Snehit Suravajulla, who defeated fellow Indians Jeet Chandra and Ronit Bhanja 3-0 (11-5,11-5,11-6) in round two to move to the main draw. However, Payas Jain and Sanil Shetty, went down at the same stage to the French pairing of Bastien Rembert and Jules Rolland in straight games.
The fourth men’s qualifying spot was taken by England’s Tom Jarvis and Samuel Walker, who put it across the home side’s Jashan Antal and Arush Dutt 3-0 (11-6,11-5,11-7).
Two other losing pairs also made it to the men’s doubles round of 16 on the basis of having higher doubles rankings than the other losing pairs. They were India’s Jeet Chandra and Ronit Bhanja and Korea’s Ganghyeon Park and Dongsoo Kang.
Three rounds of qualifying in singles and two in doubles, spread over two days have begun official proceedings of the first ever WTT Star Contender Goa.
A total of 200 players from over 30 countries will be participating in the WTT Star Contender Goa 2023, which will include at least five top-20 players in both the men’s and women’s singles main draws.