India celebrated a rare moment of success in international table tennis as Soumyajit Ghosh clinched the Under-21 men's title while Manika Batra bagged the Under-21 women's trophy at the GAC Group 2013 ITTF World Tour Brazil Open at Santos.
With the gold medal eluding them in the team event, Indian paddlers, led by defending champion Achanta Sharath Kamal, will be eyeing to better their performance in the individual competitions of the Commonwealth Games which begins in New Delhi on Monday.
Both the men's and women's table tennis teams of India were on Saturday handed easy draws for the Commonwealth Games commencing in New Delhi on Sunday.
Young Soumyajit Ghosh's maiden appearance at the Olympics was a memorable one as he advanced to the second round of the table tennis event after Ankita Das bowed out on Saturday.
Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal suffered a shock defeat to lower-ranked Chen Chien-An of Chinese Taipei in the first round and bowed out of the World Table Tennis Championships in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The world No 54 lost 11-8, 9-11, 8-11, 7-11, 9-11.
Chinese paddlers reasserted continental supremacy on Friday by defending both the men's and women's team titles on the fourth day of the 19th Asian Table Tennis Championships while Indian men finished a distant seventh in the Champions Division.
With a three-stage plan in place, Indian paddlers would be fully prepared for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi next year, feels national coach Bhawani Mukherjee.
Following the criticism of the newly-introduced two-tier format for team events at the ongoing Asian Championships, Asian Table Tennis Union (ATTU) has decided to review the new system.
Renowned Italian coach Massimo Constantini will groom Indian paddlers for the 2010 Commonwealth Games scheduled in the capital.
Seventeen-year-old Harmeet Desai, of Gujarat clinched the Joola Austria Junior and Cadet Open title at Linz, Austria beating compatriot Soumyajit Ghosh in a hard-fought five-game match.
Neeraj Chopra launches outreach programme, interacts with students from 75 schools
Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal notched up the biggest title of his career when he clinched the US Open Table Tennis Championships crown, beating Keineth Thomas of Slovakia at Michigan.
The Indian men maintained their winning spree despite their spearhead Achanta Sharath Kamal losing a tie, while the women suffered their third successive defeat in the World Team Table Tennis Championships in Moscow on Tuesday. India defeated Argentina 3-1 to register their third win on the trot in the men's section while their women, after losing to Denmark and Malaysia earlier, went down to group leaders Turkey 1-3.
Prajnesh is now ranked 102 in the men's singles rankings with a jump of seven places while Ankita leapfrogged 35 places to a career-high 168 in the women's singles.
Subajit Saha caused yet another upset by beating world number 38 Li Hu of Singapore 4-1 to finish ninth in the second stage of the Asia Cup Table Tennis Championships in Guangzhou.
Ace Indian paddlers Sharath Kamal and Subhajit Saha will feature in the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Pro Tour Grand Finals that gets underway in Seoul from December 16-19.
'He's so important for our game, one of the greatest legends of tennis in the history of the game.'
Soumyadeep Roy quelled a stiff challenge from Singapore's Xiaoli Cai to enter the men's singles semi-finals in the Commonwealth Games' table tennis competition on Tuesday. He will take on world No 17 Gao Ning, who beat India's A Amalraj 4-1 in other match.
Shrugging off the disappointment of a 1-3 semi-final loss to England, Indian men's team spanked Nigeria 3-0 in third place play-off to clinch the bronze in the Commonwealth Games' table tennis competition.
The Indian women's team had to be content with a silver medal after going down 0-3 to top seeds Singapore in the final, while their men counterparts lost the semi-final to England and crash out of the Commonwealth Games table tennis competition on Friday. Nothing went right for the defending champions, including Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal, in the final-four clash, which they lost 1-3 at the Yamuna Sports Complex.
Top seed Gao Ning will not take Indian table tennis' biggest hope Achanta Sharath Kamal lightly in case the two paddlers come face to face in the singles event of the Commonwealth Games.Sharath has, in the past, given the Singapore-based paddler some tough competitions, and Gao is wary of that.
Indian Olympic Association's acting president Anil Khanna called it a 'gender-neutral contingent' with 108 men and 107 women being part of the touring party.
Not many Indian players will go as defending champions at the upcoming Commonwealth Games but the table tennis team has at least two, one as a team.
Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal retained the men's singles title for the Maharaja Pithapuram Cup while top seed K Shamini lifted the Travancore Cup by winning the women's singles competition in the 70th Senior National Table Tennis Championship at the Secretariat Indoor Hall in Patna on Sunday.
India's young assured themselves a medal by entering the semi-finals of the Junior Asian Table Tennis Championships in Bangkok for the first time in the history of the game. The entry to the last-four stage has not only assured the four-member Indian team a bronze medal but also a straight entry into the World Junior Championships, to be held in Slovakia in December.
India's Achanta Sharath Kamal came up with a splendid performance to shock top seed Li Ching of Hong Kong and win the Egypt Open Table Tennis Championships in Cairo on Sunday. The sixth seeded Indian Olympian won 11-5,11-6,14-16,12-10,11-9 to claim his second successive title in as many weeks, having won the US Open last Sunday, beating Keineth Thomas of Slovakia in Michigan.
Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal on Sunday closed in on his second successive international title when he defeated Jiang Tianyi of Hong Kong 4-1 to storm into final of the Egypt Open table tennis championships in Cairo.
Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal faced some stiff resistance before getting the better of Mikhail Gladyshev 4-1 and stormed into the men's singles quarter-finals of the Egypt Open table tennis championships while all his compatriots crashed out in Cairo on Saturday.
Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal, Soumyadeep Roy and A Amalraj entered the men's singles second round but it was curtains for their women counterparts in the opening round itself as India made a mixed start at the Egypt Open table tennis tournament in Cairo.
Sharath Kamal, India's finest ever table tennis player, says he might have played the best match of his almost two-decade career despite ending on the wrong side of the result against the mighty Ma Long at the Tokyo Olympics on Tuesday.
Aam Aadmi Party MP Raghav Chadha and actor Parineeti Chopra tied the knot on September 24 in Udaipur.
Boxer Akhil Kumar on Monday failed to win a tactical bout dashing hopes of first Olympic medal from the ring compounding India's woes in the Games in Beijing with its challenge in women's table tennis fizzling out in first round and succes remaining elusive in athletics.
The athletes were unable to enter Australia due to government restrictions on foreign nationals travelling from China.
A summary of India's results on Day 5 of 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.
Indian youngster Soumyajit Ghosh has cleared the qualification round of the Kuwait Open and joined compatriot, Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal in the main draw of the pro tour table tennis Championships in Kuwait City.
China completed a clean sweep of all five titles at the World Table Tennis Championships in Yokahama on Tuesday, with world number ones Wang Hao and Zhang Yining claiming the men's and women's singles crowns. The Chinese team dominated the event -- held every two years -- for the third straight time, with all-Chinese finals in each discipline.
Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal came up with a resounding performance to overcome higher-ranked German Steger Bastian and reach the third round in the World Table Tennis Championships in Yokohama, Japan, on Thursday. World No 85 Sharath defeated Bastian, ranked 39, 4-1 in a long-drawn battle in the round of 64.
India dished out their best performance on Monday grabbing 42 medals, including 21 gold, to end the penultimate day with a total haul of 170 medals in the 11th South Asian Games in Dhaka.
Following is India's schedule at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, on Thursday, September 28.
