The Indian men defeated Poland in their second encounter of the group stage at the Table Tennis World Championships 3-2 to win their first match at the Halmstad Arena in Sweden on Monday.
Poland took an early lead through Jakub Dyjas who beat world number 74 Harmeet Desai 11-8, 7-11, 12-10, 11-13, 11-7. Achanta Sharath Kamal levelled the tie for India when he won a hard-fought match in five games against Pawel Fertikowski 7-11, 12-10, 14-12, 7-11, 11-6.
Marek Badowski then gave Poland the lead with a 3-1 win over Indian number one Sathiyan Gnanasekaran before Sharath Kamal won his second match of the leg, defeating world numebr 64 Dyjas in four games, 7-11, 11-9, 13-11, 21-19.
Harmeet Desai won the crucial fifth rubber against Fertikowski in four, defeating the Pole, 11-8, 11-7, 11-13, 14-12.
The South Koreans, however, proved too strong an opposition for the Indians, winning all three of their matches comfortably.
World number eight Lee Sang-su led the charge for the Republic, defeating Desai 11-9, 11-7, 11-5, 11-9. Youngsik Jeong also made short work of Anthony Amalraj, defeating the 83rd-ranked Indian in straight games, 11-7, 11-6, 13-11.
Lim Jong-hoon, the world number 33, defeated Sanil Shetty to seal the tie for the Koreans, 11-8, 15-13, 9-11, 11-9.
The Indian men face Croatia next in their penultimate group stage encounter.
Women fail to repeat CWG feat against Singapore
Having defeated them in the final of the Commonwealth Games of Gold Coast, the Indian women continued their disappointing run at the World Championships as they went down 3-0 to Singapore.
Tianwei Feng, the world number four, was at her imperious best, as she swept aside Madhurika Patkar, 12-10, 12-10, 11-3. Manika Batra, the Indian number one, went down in a close five-game encounter to world number 50, Mengyu Yu, 10-12, 11-8, 11-8, 5-11, 8-11.
Ye Lin closed the encounter out for Singapore when she dispatched Mouma Das in straight games, 11-8, 11-2, 11-5.
Later, they also lost 3-0 to Belarus. Viktoria Pavlovich beat Mouma Das in four games, while Batra lost in four games to Nadezhda Bogdanova 4-11, 12-10, 11-3, 12-10.
Madhurika Patkar then stretched Daria Trigolos to five games, but was unable to prevent India slipping to a fourth consecutive defeat.
