![\"images\"](\"https:\/\/indiansportsnews.co.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/images.jpg\")
Tokyo: India\u2019s men bowed out of the World Table Tennis Championships after they were blanked out by Egypt 3-0 in second division of Stage 2 here today. This would mean that the men\u2019s team, which had finished 27 in the last worlds two years ago in Germany, will end up in the 32-36 brackets at these championships.<\/p>\n
Indeed, this was a climb down for a team that was expected to do better here. Nevertheless, one must give credit to the Egyptians for the way they played here, first overcoming a stiff resistance from Achanta Sharath Kamal and then taming both Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet Desai, in that order for a 3-0 score.<\/p>\n
Sharath Kamal, though began on a losing note, caught up with his rival Omar Assar nicely to lead 2-1 at the end of the third game. But the Indian was definitely on some sort of trouble against Assar as the Egyptian ran up a good lead to put his opponent on mat. Having levelled the score, Assar went all out against Sharath Kamal in the fifth and clinched it earlier than one had anticipated to win 11-8, 5-11, 7-11, 11-4, 11-6.<\/p>\n
Sharath complimented his rival at the end of the match and said he was pushed to the corner by Assam who was good with his forehand drives. \u201cI made a few mistakes initially and he made most of those to surge ahead. My rhythm was not good, yet my backhand was better on the day,\u201d said Sharath Kamal.<\/p>\n
Ghosh too began on a wrong note, but managed to stage a comeback by taking the second game against El-Sayed Lashin. But that was all he could do as the Egyptian No. 2 player won 11-9, 9-11, 13-11, 11-5.<\/p>\n
With India trailing 0-2 Harmeet Desai played his usual attacking game but couldn\u2019t do much against Saleh Ahmed who beat the Indian 11-5, 11-5, 7-11, 11-7.<\/p>\n
Coach Peter Engel admitted that he expected a better performance from the Indians but said the Egyptians were too good on the day. \u201cI am happy our boys did reasonably well though I would have wanted them to cross the quarter-final hurdle,\u201d said. \u201cWe will draw our lessons from these championships and prepare adequately for the Commonwealth Games, which will be our next target,\u201d added the coach. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, national coach Bhawani Mukherjee was upbeat about the women team\u2019s chances aginst Brazil, who beat Egypt 3-2, to enter the quarterfinals. \u201cBrazil\u2019s women played really good against Egypt today. I know they are a good team and our girls have their task cut out tomorrow. I am not putting any pressure on them and just want them to give their best tomorrow,\u201d said Mukherjee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tokyo: India\u2019s men bowed out of the World Table Tennis Championships after they were blanked out by Egypt 3-0 in second division of Stage 2 here today. This would mean that the men\u2019s team, which had finished 27 in the last worlds two years ago in Germany, will end up in the 32-36 brackets at these championships.<\/p>\n
Indeed, this was a climb down for a team that was expected to do better here. Nevertheless, one must give credit to the Egyptians for the way they played here, first overcoming a stiff resistance from Achanta Sharath Kamal and then taming both Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet Desai, in that order for a 3-0 score.<\/p>\n
Sharath Kamal, though began on a losing note, caught up with his rival Omar Assar nicely to lead 2-1 at the end of the third game. But the Indian was definitely on some sort of trouble against Assar as the Egyptian ran up a good lead to put his opponent on mat. Having levelled the score, Assar went all out against Sharath Kamal in the fifth and clinched it earlier than one had anticipated to win 11-8, 5-11, 7-11, 11-4, 11-6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sports-more-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n