CWG TT: Indian men cruise, women lose to Kiwis on opening day (Roundup)
By IANSMonday, October 4, 2010
NEW DELHI - India had a mixed opening day in table tennis at the Commonwealth Games as the men toyed with island nation Vanuatu while the women lost one of their two group matches against New Zealand Monday.
The Indian eves registered a comfortable 3-0 victory over Sri Lanka in the morning but lost 2-3 in a close match against the impressive New Zealanders later in the day a the Yamuna Sports Complex.
Four of the five New Zealand players are of Chinese origin.
India changed the line-up for the match, replacing Poulomi Ghatak with Madhurika Patkar, but the move did not work as Patkar lost both her matches against Karen Li and Annie young 4-11, 4-11, 4-11 and 6-11, 13-11, 13-15, 9-11.
Shamini Kumaresan won the first match 11-5, 9-11, 11-8, 11-7 against Yang but lost the second against the formidable Karen, who set up the win for Kiwis by winning both her matches.
Mouma Das played as a third player and won her lone match against Yang Sun 11-7, 11-9, 8-11 and 11-9.
The loss against New Zealand means a second position in the group standing and stronger opponents in the quarter-finals, unless the Kiwis lose to Sri Lanka Tuesday. The Indians play their final group tie against Ghana.
In the evening, defending champions India had an easy outing with a straight win against a little known team Vanuatu, a small country with a population of 220,000.
Soumyadeep Roy, Subhajit Saha and Abhishek Ravichandran formed the starting line-up as world no 41 Sharath Kamal was rested.
Roy defeated Lulu Ham 11-3, 11-3, 11-3, Saha beat Benjamin Randy 11-2, 11-2, 11-2 and Abhishek won comfortably against Yoshua Shing 11-6, 11-5, 11-7.
The team next plays Guyana Tuesday are expected to top the group which also has Dominica.
Indian coach Bhawani Mukherjee said all is not lost with the women’s defeat and the men were expected to win easily.
” We will be second in the group now and it means tougher opponents in the quarter-finals. The men won without any hiccups and they look forward to winning remaining matches,” Mukherjee told IANS.
