Desai continues his giant-killing run

Ahmedabad: Paddler Harmeet Desai continued his giant-killing spree at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender Series by registering a come-from-behind triumph against world number 11 at the WTT Contender Tunis 2023, in Tunisia on Thursday.After beating two players ranked in the top-30 at the Contender tournament in Lagos, Desai defeated South Korea’s Lim Jonghoon 3-2 in a round-of-32 clash. The 29-year-old won 11-9, 7-11, 7-11, 11-7, 11-7 in a match spanning 46 minutes on Table 2 at the Salle Omnisport de Rades. Statistically, there was not much to differentiate between the two players. While Jonghoon won 27 points on his serve, Desai bagged 28. The latter lost 20 points on his serve while the South Korean conceded 19 points on his serve. In the men’s doubles, Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah upstaged the Chinese duo Lin Shidong and Yuan Lincen. The Indian pair triumphed 14-12, 12-14, 10-12, 11-6, 14-12 in 50 minutes in the round-of-16. In other matches, Ayhika Mukherjee sailed into the women's singles pre-quarterfinals even as her compatriots Diya Chitale and Sreeja Akula bit the dust in the opening round. Ayhika defeated Xiaotong Wang of China 11-8, 11-3, 11-2 to move into the second round.The Indian mixed doubles pair of Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Manika Batra too eased into the quarterfinals with a commanding 11-3, 11-3, 11-6 win over Algerian pair of Abdelbasset Chaichi and Malissa Nasri.The Indian pair will be up Cedric Meissner and Yuan Wan of Germany in the next round.But it was curtains for Diya and Sreeja. While Diya lost to Miyuu Kihara of Japan, Sreeja was shown the door by Yi-Hua Huang of Chinese Taipei. Manika Batra lost 13-11, 8-11, 3-11, 11-9, 8-11 to Yu-Jhun Li of Chinese Taipei in her opening match.