India's Sathiyan in World TT main draw

India's G Sathiyan continued his good show and qualified for the main draw of the men's singles event at the World Table Tennis Championships, in Suzhou, China.

Sathiyan, ranked 188 in the world, beat Felipe Olivares of Chile 11-7, 11-8, 11-8, 11-4 in his final qualifying round match to earn a place in the main draw.

But a tough opening round match awaits Sathiyan in the main draw as he is set to face Sweden's world number 64 Gerell Par.

However, it was curtains for Sanil Shetty as he crashed out in the last round of the qualifiers, losing to higher ranked Elia Schmid of Switzerland.

Shetty was leading at one stage before losing 12-10, 13-15, 11-9, 6-11, 11-7, 13-15, 9-11.

India's top ranked player Achanta Sharath Kamal will take on lower-ranked Park Sin Hyok of North Korea in the first round.

Meanwhile, India's female paddlers have their task cut out as all of them are drawn against higher-ranked opponents in the first round of the women's singles event.

Mouma Das, who at 172 is the highest ranked Indian player, runs into 69th ranked Mikhailova Polina of Russia in the first round while K Shamini, who did well on Monday to qualify for the main draw, will meet 69th ranked Lithuanian Ruta Paskaukiene.

Manika Batra, ranked 803, will meet 36th ranked Hirano Miu of Japan in the first round.

The Indian men's doubles pairs of Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan and Soumyajit Ghosh and Sanil Shetty will be seen in action on Tuesday.

Mouma and Shamini will also figure in the women's doubles event, so will Manika Batra who is partnering Australian Lay Jian Fang in this tournament.

Image: G Sathiyan

Photograph: Facebook