Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Indian Table Tennis stars advance to the Preliminary rounds

Good news! At the Paris World Table Tennis Championships, most Indian players topped the grueling qualifying group action, young guns Soumyajit Ghosh, Sanil Shetty, Harmeet Desai advanced. Also advancing to the Preliminary rounds were Shamini, Mouma, Neha, and Madhurika.

It takes a massive amount of effort to win through and even reach the main draw of 128 players. Best of seven group matches followed by best of seven preliminary rounds. So, a player who hopes to win the Championship via the qualifying route has to win much more than 10 rounds!!! This is the reason Jorg Rosskopf, the coach of the German team feels that the World Championships are tougher than the Olympic competition for Table Tennis.

India's Sharath Kamal is already directly seeded into the main draw, where he is expected to meet Timo Boll in the 2nd round.

Editor

3 comments:

  1. Except Neha Aggarwal (who lost 3-4 in the preliminaries), Mouma, Madhurika and Shamini have progressed to the main draw. In the men's section, unfortunately, only Soumyajit has progressed to the Main Draw. Harmeet and Sanil lost in the Preliminary. Sharath is directly entered in the Main draw. Sharath is to play against Carlos Machado of Spain, while Ghosh is to play Ma Long, World No 2. Shamini will play against Nikoleta of Italy, Madhurika will play NG Wing Nam of Malaysia, and Mouma will play Li HO Ching of HK. Overall, a good chance for atleast two Indians to prgress to the second round.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks C.

    Amalraj is also in the main draw and will play Koki Niwa.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Didn't know that. In fact the direct entry of Amalraj makes the scene even more encouraging. Though Indians still have a long way to go. Hopefully they will work hard and reach the top in a few years.

      Delete