Olympic TT: Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai bow out; Manika, Sreeja begin in style
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Paris: Indian table tennis ace Achanta Sharath Kamal made a shock exit from the Paris Olympics men's singles competition, losing 2-4 to lower-ranked Deni Kozul of Slovenia in a round of 64 match here on Sunday.
Harmeet Desai went down fighting to Felix Lebrun of France in straight games in another round of 64 match. Desai lost 8-11, 8-11, 6-11, 8-11 to the third seed.
The 42-year-old Sharath Kamal, who was making his fifth Olympics appearance, lost 12-10, 9-11, 6-11, 7-11, 11-8, 10-12 to his opponent ranked 86 places below him in the match that lasted 53 minutes.
The Commonwealth Games champion Indian, ranked 40th in the world, won a tight first game but lost the next three to trail 1-3. He recovered and made it 2-3 but again lost a tight fourth game to bow out of the competition. His opponent is ranked 126th in the world.
Star woman paddler Manika Batra started her campaign with a 4-1 thrashing of her opponent in a round of 64 match.
The 29-year-old Manika dominated Anna Hursey of Great Britain in a match that lasted 41 minutes.
The 2018 Commonwealth Games champion Manika, seeded 18th in the tournament and ranked 28th in the world, won 11-8, 12-10, 11-9, 9-11, 11-5 over Hursey, who is world No. 103.
In the process, Manika equalled her feat at the Tokyo Olympics where she had become the first women's table tennis player from India to make it to the round of 32 in singles.
Manika faces 12th seed Prithika Pavade of France in the round of 32 match on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, India's top-ranked woman paddler Sreeja Akula entered the round of 32 with a clinical 4-0 win over Sweden's Christina Kallberg.
Sreeja, who had made history by becoming the first Indian paddler to win a WTT Contender singles title, registered an 11-4, 11-9, 11-7, 11-8 victory in 30 minutes over the Swede.
The Indian had little trouble bagging the first set but was stretched in the second, and her rival continued to do that in the next two sets as well.
In the third set, Sreeja and Kallberg went neck-to-neck till 7-5, but the Indian found her bearings just in time to pocket it.
Sreeja made the early running in the fourth set, taking a 9-3 lead, but a few unforced errors and a couple of good smashes helped Kallberg narrow the lead to 9-7 and then to 10-8.
But a powerful unanswered forehand to the right corner of the table propelled Sreeja to the next round.