India’s Manush Shah and Raegan Albuquerque clinched a bronze medal in the Belgium Junior and Cadet Open, a part of the International Table Tennis Junior Circuit Premium at Spa on Friday.
The duo paired up with Iran’s Amin Ahmadian and Radin Khayyam to win the medal in the Junior Boys event.
The Indo-Iranian team didn’t have the best of starts against local lads Adrien Rassenfosse, Nicolas Degros and Olav Kosolosky as Iran’s Amin Ahmadian went down meekly (0-3) to Adrien in the first match. However, Manush promptly restored parity with a 3-1 win over Olav Kosolosky.
Raegan couldn’t keep up the momentum as he lost out to Nicolas Degros in a closely fought encounter (1-3). World No 21 (U-18) Manush displayed grit to register another 3-1 win over Adrien Rassenfosse to take the contest into the last match. Iran’s Amin came into his own to seal a 3-2 victory over Olav to carry the team into the semi-finals.
In the semis, the mixed team of Indians and Iranians were up against the combination of Ryoichi Yoshiyama and Takeru Kashiwa of Japan and Nathan Xu of New Zealand. The Indo-Iranian team fought hard but went down 0-3 to settle for a bronze medal.