Mouma, Shamini and Ankita enter 3rd round in Asian TT

K Shamini, Mouma Das and Ankita Das entered the third round from their respective quarters in the women`s singles event at the Asian Table Tennis Championships.

Busan: National champion K Shamini, veteran Mouma Das and Olympian Ankita Das entered the third round from their respective quarters in the women`s singles event at the Asian Table Tennis Championships here on Thursday.

However it was curtains for Delhi girl Neha Aggarwal and Maharashtra`s Madhurika Patkar. On a day which saw three women paddlers making progress, two were standout performances and the most talked about being the one between Mouma Das and Singapore`s Singapore`s Isabelle Siun Li whom the Indian beat 4-3 in 75 minutes, the longest so far in the championships. Mouma eventually overcame the Singaporean in a contest that went the full distance with the minimal two-point margin sealing the issue in seventh game. Mouma won 11-6, 11-5, 13-11, 7-11, 17-19, 9-11, 11-9. Mouma will take on Japanese Ishikawa Kasumi in the next round. For Akita, it was equally a tough ask against Vienamese Mai Hoang My Trang who stretched the Indian almost the full distance before Indian clinching the match 4-2 (6-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-6, 8-11, 11-9) in her favour. As for Shamini, she had the best of outings as she completed her second-round demolition of Iranian Omrani Mahjobeh in less than half an hour with a 4-0 rout. Shamini won 11-8, 11-5, 11-6, 11-6 victory. Shamini will play Chinese Ding Ning in the next round. But Neha lost her first-round match to Korean Cho Hala 1-4 (8-11, 9-11, 11-9, 4-11, 4-11) while Madhurika Patkar made her exit in the secound round losing to Chinese Liu Shiwen 5-11, 9-11, 3-11, 4-11. Earlier she had beaten Taipei`s Huang Hsin 4-2 (11-4, 9-11, 7-11, 11-5, 11-4, 11-6). In men’s doubles the pair of Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet Desai lost to Ma Long and Xu Xin 2-3 in the second round, while the other Indian duo of Sharath Kamal and Sanil Shetty entered the third round after they got a walkover from the Iranian pair of Teharkhani Hamidreza and Mohammad Akhlaghpasand. PTI