Eighteen-year-old Manav Thakkar had a mixed day in the ITTF World Tour event in Hong Kong losing his men’s 21 singles match while easily winning the men’s singles prelim round 1 encounter.
The only Indian paddler to qualify for the 2018 Youth Olympics, defeated Chinese Taipei’s Yang Heng-Wei 11-9, 11-6, 11-7, 11-7 in the men’s category but lost to Joe Seyfried of France 9-11, 11-7, 2-11, 8-11 in round of 32 of the under 21 event.
Thakkar will now face Japan’s Yuto Kizukuri in the prelim second round while Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, who had a bye, will kick off his campaign against Denmark’s Yujia Zhai.
Among the other Indians in fray, Harmeet Desai lost a marathon match against Japan’s Masaki Takami (rank 166) 11-8, 11-13, 6-11, 11-6, 10-12, 11-5, 8-11 in the men’s singles prelim round 1 while Seyfriend account for another Indian, Sanil Shetty, in the men’s category 11-6, 14-12, 7-11, 9-11, 11-6, 11-9.
In the women’s section, 18-year-old Selena Selvakumar lost to Lee Eunhye of Korea in singles prelim round 8-11, 6-11, 14-12, 6-11, 8-11 and also failed to advance beyond the Round of 32 in the U-21 section losing to Wang Yidi of China 6-11, 4-11, 8-11.
