The Indian men’s table tennis squad successfully defended their team title at the Commonwealth Games, beating Singapore 3-1 in the final at Birmingham.

India at CWG 2022 Day 5 blog

The Indian team, led by the veteran Achanta Sharath Kamal had not lost a single match during the entire event, raising the already high expectations on the team to defend their Gold Coast 2018 title.

In the opening match of the tie, Harmeet Desai and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran came up with a 13-11, 11-7, 11-5 win over Izaac Quek and Koen Pang. However, Sharath Kamal was dealt an upset in the second match when hard-hitting left-hander Clarence Chew beat the World No 39 11-7, 12-14, 11-3, 11-9.

Sathiyan was then back on court in the third match against Koen Pang but came up with a hard-earned 12-10, 7-11, 11-7, 11-4 win to put India 2-1 up.

Then stepped up Desai, the 2019 Commonwealth Championship singles gold medal winner, and came up with a commanding 11-8, 11-5, 11-6 win over Chew to secure the title.

This was the third time the Indian men’s team won the event at the Commonwealth Games, having first won the title in Melbourne 2006, later at Gold Coast 2018 and now in Birmingham.