Lasko (Slovenia), Nov 12 India's campaign in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender Novo Mesto 2021 event came to an end with both Achanta Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan losing in the men's singles Round of 16 on Friday.
Kamal, who had reached the pre-quarterfinals round by beating Takuya Jin of Japan 3-0 in a Round of 32 match on Thursday, failed to recreate the magic against World No. 10 Liang Jingkun of China and lost 3-0.
Kamal, ranked 32 in the World, lost 6-11, 8-11, 10-12 in the pre-quarterfinal encounter.
In another match, Sathiyan took a game off World No 23 Darko Jorgic of Slovenia before losing 1-3. Sathiyan, ranked 37th in the world, put up a good fight but lost the first game 9-11. He could not do much in the second game and lost that 3-11. But the Indian regrouped himself and fought back to win the third game 11-5 before losing his way in the fourth game to exit the event with a 9-11, 3-11,11-5, 5-11 score.
In the absence of Manika Batra, the Indian challenge in the women's singles had come to an end on Thursday when both Shreeja Akula and qualifier Diya Parag Chitale lost in the first round.
Two men's doubles pairs and the mixed doubles duo of Archana Kamath, who had won the women's doubles title with Manika Batra in the previous WTT event last week, and Manav Thakkar too had lost in the first round of the main draw on Thursday.
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