Sutirtha-Pooja take bronze in Australian Open TT

Indian paddlers Sutirtha Mukherjee and Pooja Sahasrabudhe settled for bronze after going down to top seeded Chinese duo of Chen Meng and Zhu Ling in the women's doubles semi-finals at the Australian Open table tennis tournament here on Wednesday.

The top seeds hardly broke sweat as they disposed of the Indians quickly with a facile 11-4, 11-6, 11-2 victory.

Earlier, the Indians defeated Miao Miao and Jian Fang Lay of Australia 9-11, 14-12, 11-8, 11-9 to enter the women's doubles semi-finals.

The Australians were the more experienced pair, but Sutirtha and Pooja didn't back down.

In men's singles, Harmeet Desai lost to 12th seed Maharu Yoshimura of Japan 7-11, 6-11, 14-16, 8-11.

But Sanil Shetty upset South Korea's Jang Woojin 11-9, 3-11, 12-10, 11-3, 6-11, 11-8 and G. Sathiyan accounted for Chinese Taipei's Chen Chien-An 11-6, 4-11, 1-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-9 in two of the biggest achievements for the Indians in the round of 32.

--IANS

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