Star Indian paddler duo of Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Manika Batra are at world number 20 (as a pair) in the latest International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) mixed doubles rankings.
While the Indian pair has 400 points, Japanese duo of Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito top the rankings with 3635 points.
Sathiyan and Manika bagged the mixed doubles title at the WTT Contender Budapest table tennis event on Friday.
They defeated Hungary's Nandor Ecseki and Dora Madarasz 3-1 (11-9, 9-11, 12-10, 11-6) to become the first Indian table tennis players to win a WTT Contender title.
The fifth-seeded Indian duo only faced hiccups during the second set of the match as after tying the score 9-9, two errors by them allowed Ecseki-Madarasz to win the second game.
Batra and Sathiyan then easily regained their momentum in the last two games of the match after winning the first, to lift the mixed doubles title. They were the only Indian players in action on the final day of the WTT Contender Budapest.
In the mixed doubles (Individuals) rankings, Manika Batra jumped 33 spots to reach the 19th position with 562 points. Meanwhile, Sathiyan reached the 29th spot after gathering 502 points.
The WTT Contender Series is a part of the revamped ITTF calendar launched this year and features two tiers of events -- WTT Star Contender and WTT Contender, as per Olympics.com. The events carry world ranking points that help players to progress through the new structure into WTT Champions and Grand Smash events.
( With inputs from ANI )
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