Sathiyan Gnanasekaran was the last Indian left in the singles fray after a win in the second round of the ITTF World Championships at Budapest on Tuesday.
The 26-year-old Indian moved into the third round with a comfortable 11-5, 11-9, 6-11, 11-7, 11-6 win over Romania’s Cristian Pletea. The world No 28 will meet Hugo Calderano of Brazil, ranked No. 7, in the round of 32 later Wednesday.
He was also part of the mixed doubles competition, partnering Archana Kamath. The Indian pair went down to the higher-ranked in mixed doubles pair of Lee Sangsu and Jihee Jion as the Korean pair moved into the quarter-finals with a 11-6, 11-4, 7-11, 11-7, 11-8.
Meanwhile Achanta Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra’s singles campaign came to an end in the second round. The two had already lost in the doubles first round.
Sharath Kamal, ranked 37th, lost 11-9, 12-10, 8-11, 11-4, 11-9 to lower-ranked Tomislav Pucar of Croatia while Batra, ranked 56th, lost to Chinese Taipei’s world No 24 Szu-Yu Chen 11-2, 11-8, 7-11, 11-7, 11-9 in the round of 64.
Sutirtha Mukherjee (ranked 502) almost pulled off another huge upset but was knocked out by 18-year-old Adriana Diaz (world No 31) after a hard-fought match in round of 64. The Indian had earlier dug deep to upset Germany’s World No 58 Sabine Winter 4-3 in the first round.
Also read: Suthirta stuns higher-ranked Sabine Winter; Manika, Sathiyan, Sharath progress