New Delhi, April 30: It was a fantastic outcome for former national title-holder Soumyajit Ghosh and women’s reigning national Manika Batra at the Nakheel Table Tennis Asian Cup which concluded at Dubai tonight.

Ghosh, who has had a fine outing in the Inter Continental Cup Group, finished seventh after entering the main draw where he lost to Gao Ning of Singapore 1-4 (6-11, 11-7, 7-11, 4-11, 8-11). But in positional match, playing for the seventh spot, he defeated Taipei’s Chiang Hung-Chieh 4-3 (10-12, 11-9, 6-11, 11-6, 11-8, 9-11, 11-4) in a tough battle. Incidentally, this was the first time that the Indian was able to overcome his Taipei rival. Earlier, he lost the fifth position match to Lee Sangsu of Korea 1-4.

But even before that accomplishment, Ghosh had another first to his credit when he felled another Korean Youngsik Jung in the semifinals of the men’s singles challenge 3-2 (11-6, 7-11, 11-8, 10-12, 11-80 to enter the main draw. Ghosh had lost badly to the Korean twice before both at Australia Open Chalenge and Korea Open, which is a super series.

As for the group stage, Ghosh led all way through, accounting for Iran’s Nima Alamian 3-2, Abdulla Albalooshi of UAE 3-0 and Singapore’s Clarence Chew Zhe Yu 3-1, to enter the main draw.

Manika Batra, who kept a clean slate in the Intercontinental Cup Group to lead the pack of four players, defeated Noora Al-Abri of Qatar 3-0, Majd Alblooshi of UAE 3-1 and then finally scalped Thailand’s Suthasini Sawettabut 3-0 to enter the quarterfinals, which is the women’s singles challenge.

In the quarterfinals, the India’s top-ranked player’s progresse was halted when she lost to Hong Kong’s Huajun Jiang 1-3 (5-11, 8-11, 11-9, 9-11).

Unfortunately, India’s ace player Achanta Sharath Kamal, who was directly entered into the men’s singles qualifiers section, bowed at the group stage itself without making any impression. Drawn in group 2 with three players to contend with, Sharath Kamal lost all his matches. Playing Wong Chun Ting, the Indian went down 0-3 to the Hong Kong padller, then he met Korean Lee Sangsu and in the tough battle Sharath lost 2-3 while in his last match against Chinese Jike Zhang the top-ranked Indian in the world was thrashed 0-3.

With the new ITTF ranking list awaited in a few of days, Ghosh could even upstage Sharath in rankings, thanks to his beating two higher ranked players, which included Sangsu, en route his acquiring the seventh position in the Asian Cup.