Indian paddlers Manush Shah and Diya Chitale secured a bronze medal in mixed doubles at the Asian Games after going down 0-4 to reigning champions Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin in the semifinals at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium here on Friday.
Manush and Diya had advanced to the last four with an impressive 3-1 win over four-time world medallists and World No. 4 pair Wong Chun and Doo Ho in the quarterfinals.
However, the Indian duo found the going tough against the Olympic champions and two-time defending Asian Games winners, who are popularly known as ‘Sha-Tou’.
Manush and Diya made a competitive start, staying close to the Chinese pair before losing the opening game 8-11. Sun and Wang then raised the tempo to take the second 11-5 and quickly moved 5-0 ahead in the third.
The Indians fought back in the third game and managed to put pressure on their opponents, but Sun and Wang held their nerve to win 11-8. The Chinese pair then closed out the semifinal with an 11-2 fourth-game win.
The bronze marks another milestone for Indian table tennis, with Manush and Diya becoming the only second Indian mixed doubles pair to win an Asian Games medal after Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra.
India’s campaign in the table tennis doubles events also saw men’s doubles pair Harmeet Desai and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran bow out in the third round after a 0-3 loss to Japan’s Sora Matsushima and Shunsuke Togami.
In women’s doubles, Yashaswini Ghorpade and Diya Chitale lost 0-3 to China’s Shuhan Fan and Yi Chen, while Sreeja Akula and Syndrela Das were beaten 0-3 by China’s Man Kuai and Manyu Wang.
Manav Thakkar suffered a 2-4 defeat to North Korea’s Ryong Tae in the men’s singles second round, while Manush had earlier lost his men’s doubles second-round match with Manav to Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto and Hiroto Shinozuka 1-3.
Yashaswini, however, advanced in the women’s singles with a 4-1 victory over Syria’s Hend Zaza in the second round.