Indian men’s TT team loses to South Korea in World Championships

Sathiyan Gnanasekaran in action during his men’s singles group stage match against South Korea’s Lim Jong-hoon.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

India endured a second consecutive loss at the World Table Tennis Team Championships, going down to hosts South Korea 0-3 here on February 19.

Veteran Sharath Kamal, reigning national champion Harmeet Desai and G. Sathiyan lost their respective singles to go down meekly in their third group stage tie against third seeds Korea.

Harmeet, who is India’s top-ranked player at 67, went down to world number 14 Jang Woojin 4-11, 10-12, 8-11.

Sathiyan was then brushed aside by world number 16 Lim Jonghoon 5-11, 7-11, 7-11 with India trailing 0-2.

Sharath managed to put up a fight, taking the second game but couldn’t capitalise on the momentum losing 9-11, 11-8, 6-11, 5-11 to Lee San Su and conceding the tie.

After winning its opening tie against Chile, the Indian team lost 1-3 to Poland. But despite the two losses, India lie in the second spot in Group 3 behind Korea.

Later in the day, the India women’s team will take on Uzbekistan.