Indian men lose to Singapore, face Iran for 7-8 position

India's men team failed to overcome a tough Singapore, losing 1-3 in positions 5-6 matches of the champion division at the Asian Table Tennis Championships in Pattaya, Thailand today.
They will now run into Iran, a second time in two days, when they play them in the match for position 7-8 tomorrow, which is also the day when team events conclude. Iran, too, lost to Hong Kong 1-3 in the 5-6 position.
In the morning, the Indian paddlers had blanked out Iran 3-0, keeping their top billing justified in the first division. They could not, however, sustain the pace and guile of the Singaporeans in the champion division.

Harmeet Desai started the proceedings and went down 9-11, 7-11, 7-11 to Yang Zi and then Soumyajit Ghosh followed suit when Gao Ning had him 13-11, 11-4, 11-4, a little resistance coming from the Indian only in the first game. Left-handed Sanil Shetty proved to be the saving grace when he overcame Chew Zhe Yu Clarence in four games of 5-11, 11-6, 11-6, 11-8, the only weak-link in Singapore's armoury. After that Gao accounted for Desai, with some struggle, 11-7, 11-6, 8-11, 11-6, to put the issue beyond India.
Now it is imperative for the men's team to grab the respectable seventh spot when they take on Iran tomorrow.

The women's team, after failing to make it to the champion division yesterday, made amends today and beat the Philippines 3-2 in a tough battle in position 9-10 encounter.
After the conclusion of team finals and position matches, the tough battle for singles crowns will resume from Wednesday. The singles draw in men's section is of 256 with liberal byes, the beneficiaries include form Ma Long to Xu Xin to the five Indians. In other words, they don't appear on the scene until the draw is reduced 128 players. The real action begins from there on when all top guns start firing.

But the women paddlers straightaway begin their individual matches from the day after as the draw of 128 players and the five Indians - Mouma Das, Ankita Das, K. Shamni, Pooja Saharasbudhe and Manika Batra - join the action from round one. Only 16 byes have been accorded which, naturally, have gone to the players of high-perch from China, Japan, the two Koreas, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei.