Doha [Qatar]: Paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal's impressive run at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender came to an end after he suffered a 9-11, 8-11, 6-11 defeat at the hands of World No. 12 Dimitrij Ovtcharov in the men's singles pre-quarterfinal match on Wednesday.
Sharath, who surprised World No. 16 Germany's Patrick Franziska in his last match, started the game well and gave a tough fight to his relatively higher-ranked German opponent as the first two games of the match went neck and neck before the London Olympics bronze medalist turned the momentum in his favour.
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The German further capitalised on the 2-0 lead and wrapped up the match to enter the quarter-finals.
With Sharath's loss, India's participation in the tournament also came to an end. Earlier, Gnanasekaran Sathiyan and Manika Batra had made second-round exits in their respective singles categories.
In the first qualifying round of men's singles, Anthony Amalraj had suffered a 6-11, 11-9, 3-11, 7-11 defeat against Mizuki Oikawa of Japan while Harmeet Desai lost to Ukraine's Yevhen Pryshchepa with 10-12, 9-11, 11-13, 9-11 scoreline.
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While in the women's singles qualifiers, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ahyika Mukherjee couldn't progress into the third round. Sutirtha lost the hard-fought match 11-9, 11-6, 5-11, 9-11, 9-11 to Hayeong Kim of Korea, and Ayhika suffered a 5-11, 11-13, 7-11 loss against Irina Ciobanu of Romania.
