Poulomi, Soumyajit lead India into quarterfinals
The men paddlers, on the other hand, have moved into the second stage from Group A beating Bahrain and UAE with a similar margin of 3-0 and take on Iran for a place in the last-eight stage of the championships. If they manage to beat Iran, whose backbone is Noshad Alamiyan, Indian men will run into Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals. However, the story of the day is the maiden entry of Indian women players into the champion division of the meet. They will now take on the Chinese who did a thoroughly professional job to decimate their opponents to take their appointed place.
In fact, this commanding lead proved decisive for Ankita Das who, despite losing a game to Suttlux Rattanaprayoon, won 14-12, 11-5, 10-12, 11-5, leaving Thailand to compete for the ninth place. National coach Bhavani Mukherjee praised national champion Poulomi for the gutsy play she put up against her Thai opponent. “Poulomi was too good today with her attacking game that left her opponent clueless. This momentum also helped Ankita in the third rubber,” he said. Earlier, drawn in Group C, India beat Turkmenistan 3-0 and blanked out neighbours Sri Lanka in a similar fashion to enter stag two. The format of the championships is that teams finishing first in each group progresses to the knockout stage with two finalists from there entering the champion division. |