Indian boys lose in quarters, to play 5-6 position match

The Indian boys, after losing to Korea in the quarterfinals, have done themselves some sort a favour in the team event by beating Singapore 3-0 in second stage of the 21st Asian Junior and Cadet Table Tennis Championships, being held in Kuala Lumpur.
The Indian paddlers will now run into Chinese Taipei, who accounted for North Korea 3-1, in the position match 5-6.
Lalrin Puia, Utkarsh Gupta and Sanish Ambedkar won their singles without problems against Yin Jing Yuan, Tay Ming Han and Ethan Pho Shao Feng, respectively. Puia defeated Yin 11-7, 5-11, 12-10, 14-12, Utkarsh downed Tay 11-6, 6-11, 11-6, 11-4 while Sanish beat Ethan 6-11, 11-9, 11-7, 5-11, 11-5.

Earlier, in the quarterfinals, the Koreans cleaned up the Indians with Cho Seungmin beating Lalrinpuia 3-1, An Jaehyun blanking out Sanish Ambekar 3-0, and Lalrin Puia losing to Park Jeongwqoo 1-3.
In the last edition of the Asian Junior championships, held at Mumbai in 2014, the Indian boys had finished ninth after they beat Bahrain 3-1. Considering the position they had achieved at home last year, the Indian boys have done reasonably well in Malaysia, despite the presence of all top Asian teams.
But the Junior girls went down a few rungs to finish tenth. In the 9-10 positions match, Singapore beat India 3-1. Earlier, the Indian girls lost 0-3 in the pre-quarterfinal match against Chinese Taipei. It was sort of a revenge for the Taipei girls who, in the Mumbai edition, lost to 1-3 hosts and had finished eighth behind India.

Against Singapore, only Sreeja Akula posted 11-7, 11-4, 11-4 triumph over Eunice Zoe Lim in the first singles but both Maria Rony and Seraha Jacob lost their matches. Maria went down 5-11, 5-11, 7-11 to Wan Qi Ang, then Seraha lost her match 11-7, 6-11, 9-11, 8-11 to Pearlyn Koh Kai Xin as Singapore led 2-1. In the reverse singles, Wan beat Sreeja 12-10, 9-11, 11-4, 11-9.
In the Cadet section, the girls have done reasonably well as compared to the boys. The girls, who could not go past the quarterfinals, went down 0-3 to North Korea while boys will be playing for positions 9-13 after they failed to qualify for the second stage. In the first stage, they lost to Malaysia 1-3.

In the quarterfinals, the Cadet girls' team, comprising Srushti Halelangdi and Archana Kamath, failed to match the aggression of North Koreans. Srushti, however, did put up a good fight losing her first singles to Un Gum Ko 4-11, 11-8, 11-4, 6-11, 5-11 but lost her second singles to the same opponent in straight games. Archana had lost her singles against Song Gyong Pyon 11-5, 11-6, 12-10, forcing the Indians to play the positional matches. Incidentally, at the Mumbai edition the team from DPR Korea had not entered.