The Indian men’s team continued its winning streak at the ongoing World Team Table Tennis Championships, defeating Germany in their second Group 2 match of the tournament on Sunday.
India defeated their opponents by 3-1 in the match.
Sathiyan Gnanasekaran started off for India against Germany’s Benedikt Duda. Sathiyan was off to a bad start, losing his first two sets by 11-13, 4-11. However, the highest-ranked Indian TT player kept his nerves and made his way back into the game with wins in two sets by 11-8, 11-4. With things even at 2-2, he secured the closely fought final set by 11-9.
At this point, India established a 1-0 lead.
In the next game, India’s Harmeet Desai locked horns against Qiu Dang.
Desai lost the first two sets, before bouncing back to win a highly competitive third set. He lost the final set, losing the game by 1-3 (7-11, 9-11, 13-11, 3-11) to Dang.
Germany was back in the game, with scores at 1-1.
Manav Thakkar was the next up for India, hoping to turn this deadlock in his nation’s favour against Ricardo Walther. Thakkar started fantastically, winning the first set by 13-11, before losing the next one by 6-11. Thakkar kept his calm and finished the next two sets with a win by 11-8, 12-10 to seal the game 3-1.
India was once again leading at 2-1 after this win.
Gnanasekaran was back in action in a highly crucial fourth game against Dang, who had defeated Desai. Gnanasekaran started off with losses in two sets by 10-12, 7-11. He made a remarkable comeback in the next three sets, winning them by 11-8, 11-8, and 11-9. This whole game was high in intensity and it was Gnanasekaran’s speed and strokeplay that prevailed.
With this victory, India won the match by 3-1.
The Indian men’s table tennis team had made a winning start to their campaign at the championship in China with a win over Uzbekistan in their first Group 2 match of the tournament on Saturday.
Team India crushed their opponents, gaining a clean sweep of 3-0 in their match.
The World Team Table Tennis Championships started in China on September 30 and will go on till October 9.
