The Indian men’s and women’s teams both progressed to the knock-out stages of the World Team Table Tennis Championships in Busan, South Korea on Tuesday.
While the women’s team secured a thrilling come-from-behind 3-2 victory against Spain to finish second in their group, the men’s team swept New Zealand 3-0 to finish third in their group.
The Indian women needed something special to overcome Spain after both Sreeja Akula and Manika Batra lost their respective matches to give the European side a 2-0 lead in the tie.
Akula lost the opening singles match to Maria Xiao 9-11, 11-9, 11-13, 4-11. Sofia-Xuan Zhang made it 2-0 for Spain with a 13-11, 6-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-7 win over India's top ranked player Batra.
Ayhika Mukherjee then kept the tie alive with a 3-2 (11-8, 11-13, 11-8, 9-11, 11-4) victory over Elvira Rad in the third singles match.
Akula and Batra would then go on to win their second singles encounters 3-1 and 3-0 respectively to secure the tie and enter the knock-out stage. India finished second in the group, only behind China who they had lost to despite securing a 2-0 lead in the tie initially.
In the men’s tie, reigning national champion Harmeet Desai and G Sathiyan registered solid wins against Choi Timothy and Alfred Pena Dela respectively in the opening two singles.
While Desai won 11-5, 11-1, 11-6, Sathiyan defeated Dela 11-3, 11-7, 11-6.
Manush Shah then came back from 0-2 down to pull off a 10-12, 6-11, 11-4, 11-8, 11-6 win over Maxwell Henderson. This meant that India finished third behind South Korea and Poland in their group.
The women’s team will face Italy in the Round of 32 on Wednesday. Italy had finished third in group 5.
A quarter-final finish in the event will assure India of a place in the team event of the 2024 Paris Olympics.