Sharath, Mouma get direct entry; mixed day for Indians

Achanta Sharath Kamal and Mouma Das secured direct entry to the main rounds in their respective singles category while rest of the Indians yielded mixed performance in the Indian Open table tennis championships.

New Delhi: Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal and former national champion Mouma Das secured direct entry to

the main rounds in their respective singles category while rest of the Indians yielded mixed performance in the Indian Open table tennis championships here on Wednesday. Former India number one Subhajit Saha started his journey in the USD 100,000 event with two consecutive wins over Yeh Chih-Wei of Chinese Taipei and compatriot Harmeet Desai with an identical 4-2 scoreline in men`s singles qualifying round. Meanwhile, reigning woman national champion Poulomi Ghatak comprehensively beat compatriot Mamata Prabhu 4-1, but then proved no match to Malaysian NG Sock Khim, who spanked the Indian 4-0. In other men`s singles matches, Sourav Chakraborty got walk over against compatriot Arpit Bhopalkar but then went down 1-4 to Ionescu Ovidiu of Romania. Promising youngster G Sathiyan suffered a 3-4 defeat to Ovidiu, but then got a walkover from Bhopalkar. Another young Indian paddler Soumyajit Ghosh was humiliated 1-4 by Cai Xiaoli of Singapore. Among women, Olympian Neha Aggarwal had a forgettable day as she suffered back-to-back defeats. After going down 1-4 to compatriot Madhurika Patkar, German Solja Amelie added salt to Neha`s wound by thrashing her 0-4 in the qualifiers. After two days of qualifying rounds, the main draw of the tournament, which is also a test event for October 3-14 Commonwealth Games, will start from Friday. PTI