Silver for Sharath, Sathiyan at Hungarian Open

Budapest, Feb 23 (IANS) Indian men's doubles pair of Achanta Sharath Kamal and Gnanasekaran Sathiyan clinched a silver medal at the 2020 ITTF World Tour Hungarian Open in Budapest. The pair put in a strong effort but eventually went down fighting 5-11, 9-11, 11-8, 9-11 to the 16th seeds Benedikt Duda and Patrick Franziska of Germany in a 30-minute summit showdown.Sathiyan and Sharath had been splendid all week and had even accounted for the top seeds Ho Kwan Kit and Wong Chun Ting of Hong Kong in a hard-fought 3-2 victory in the semi-finals.This is Sharath Kamal's second medal in Budapest as he also went on to win a bronze in mixed doubles in partnership with Manika Batra. Mathan Rajan Hansini put up an impressive performance by bagging the bronze medal in the Mini-Cadet Girls' Singles category in what was her maiden appearance at an International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) junior circuit event. The 10-year-old Class V student started her main draw challenge after a couple of wins in the group stages before going down to Russia's Iuliia Pugovkina 12-10, 9-11, 5-11, 8-11 in a gruelling semi-final match.In the main draw, she beat Russia's Aleksandra Bokova 12-10, 9-11, 9-11, 3-11 in the Round of 16 and notched up a commanding 11-3, 12-10, 11-9 win over Isha Bajpai of the USA in the quarter-finals. Suhana Saini meanwhile reached the Round of 16 while in the Cadet Boys' Singles section, rising star Suresh Raj Preyesh too made it to the pre-quarters.
--IANS rkm/rt