G Sathiyan was the lone Indian to progress to the preliminary round while it was curtains for both Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra at the ITTF-ATTU Asian Cup here on Friday.
Sathiyan, the world No. 28 who had reached the semi-finals at the Challenge Plus Oman Open in Muscat recently, accounted for the most experienced player in the tournament, Chuang Chih-Yuan of Chinese Taipei 11-5, 11-4, 11-8 to finish third in Group C. This enabled him to qualify for the playoff tomorrow for one of the two slots in the quarterfinals.
The tournament's format allows the top two players in each of the first three groups directly making the quarterfinal grade while those who had finished third in those groups and the fourth group (D) topper complete for the remaining two slots.
Sathiyan began badly losing first to Koki Nowa of Japan 7-11, 9-11, 12-10, 8-11 but won the match against No. 8 seed from Taipei 11-5, 11-4, 11-8 before losing the last group match to Lee Sangsu of Korea 7-11, 4-11, 11-6, 11-5.
The No. 10 seeded Indian will take on Kazakh's Kirill Gerassimenko tomorrow in the preliminary round. A win for the Indian will put him in an enviable position as he would join the top six in the quarterfinals where he may be facing one of the two top seeds, Fan Zhendong or Ma Long of China.
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