The Indian duo of Achanta Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan capped their fantastic run at the ITTF World Tour Hungarian Open with a silver medal in the men’s doubles on Saturday.
They went down 1-3 in the final to 16th seeds Germany’s Benedikt Duda and Patrick Franziska, a day after stunning top seeds Kwan Kit Ho and Chun Ting Wong of Hong Kong in the semi-finals.
The Indian qualifiers lost the 30-minute final showdown 5-11, 9-11, 11-8, 9-11 in four games, after clawing back from a 0-2 deficit to take the third game.
This was the first time that the Indian pair had reached the final in the men’s doubles category at a World Tour event.
This is Sharath Kamal’s second medal from this prestigious tournament as he also went on to win a bronze in mixed doubles in partnership with Manika Batra.
On Thursday, Sharath and Sathiyan had beaten home favourites Nandor Ecseki and Adam Szudi in the quarter-finals, after having sent the Japanese pair of Shunsuke Togami and Yukia Uda packing in the previous round.
“Generally both of us are quite emotional and expressive, it just pumps us up and gives us confidence. It is also the first time we have beaten Wong and Ho, so personally I am very happy,” Sharath Kamal had said after the semi-final win.
Earlier in the tournament, Manika Batra reached the round of 16 before losing against Japanese Miu Hirano in the pre-quarterfinals after stunning Szu-Yu Chen of Taipei 4-3 in a tough round of 32 match. Sathiyan lost in the round of 16 against top-seed Harimoto Tomokazu.
Sharath and Batra’s run in mixed doubles had come to an end at the semi-finals as well.
Overall, the week saw India’s top paddlers impress in all categories.
Correction: An earlier version of this article mistakenly labelled Benedikt Duda and Patrick Franziska as second seeds. The error has been fixed to 16th seeds.