Paddler Manav assures U-21 singles bronze in Belarus Open

Indias prodigious young paddler Manav Vikash Thakkar scored an easy 3-0 victory over Russias Lev Katsman in the quarter-finals to assure himself a place in the last four and at least a bronze medal in the U-21 men's singles category of the ITTF Challenge Belgosstrakh Belarus Open here on Friday.

Earlier in the pre-quarters, Thakkar, had to display his prowess before eking out a hard-fought 3-2 win against U-21 World No.8 Yuki Matsuyama of Japan.

It was only in the pre-quarters that Manav lost two games consecutively (9-11, 3-11) to the Japanese.

Matsuyama was in cruise control till the Indian launched a vicious comeback to tower over his opponent as he bagged the next three games on the trot (11-7, 11-8, 11-9), to secure a berth in the last eight stage of the tournament.

Buoyant after the big win, Manav didn't let Russia's Katsman settle into the game as he breezed past him with easy 11-5, 11-7 and 15-13 wins to progress to the semi-finals.

The open category for the men's singles witnessed Manav in rampaging form as he defeated Kohe Sambe of Japan in the round of 64.

Manav didn't have the best of starts as he went down 6-11 in the first game but bounced back to win the next three and capitalised on the lead to bag the tie 4-1. He will take on World No. 101, Belgium's Robin Devos, in the round of 32 encounter later on Friday.

Harmeet Desai also progressed through to the next round of the senior category with a convincing 4-0 win over Germany's Dennis Klein whereas Sanil Shetty couldn't follow suit and bowed out of the tournament rather meekly after a 0-4 loss to Russia's Denis Ivonin.

Desai will be looking to cross the next hurdle as he takes on Alexey Liventsov of Russia.

In the men's doubles category, the duo of Harmeet-Sanil couldn't move past the combination of Oleksandr Didukh of Ukraine and Lubomir Pistej of Slovakia in their opening round of 16 clash as they went down 1-4 to bow out of the tournament.

--IANS

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