New Delhi: Achantha Sharath Kamal advanced to the second round of men's singles while all his Indian team-mates bowed out of individual events at the World Table Tennis Championships in Paris on Wednesday. Sharath Kamal registered a 11-7 11-5 8-11 11-8 5-11 11-9 win over Spain's Carlos Machado in his first singles encounter and will now take on world number five Timo Boll of Germany in the second round.
Anthony Amalraj and Soumyajit Ghosh lost their opening round matches of the main draw to end their individual campaign. While Amalraj was beaten by Koki Niwa of Japan 5-11 4-11 8-11 7-11, Soumyajit was thrashed by Long Ma of China. The world number two was far too superior for the 20 year-old Indian and registered an easy four-game 11-8 11-4 11-3 11-9 win.
Indian challenge ended in the women singles event too after all the qualifiers -- Mouma Das, K Shamini and Madhurika Patkar -- lost their respective opening matches of the main draw. Shamini was comprehensively beaten by Italy's Nikoleta Stefanova in the opening round of the main draw. She did not pose much of a challenge to 115th ranked Italian and lost the match 4-11 5-11 7-11 9-11.
Patkar lost to Wing Nam Ng of Hong Kong 8-11 4-11 8-11 12-10 3-11 while Mouma Das went down 11-7 5-11 5-11 6-11 5-11 to Hong Kong's Ho Ching Lee. In the mixed doubles competition, the duo of Ghosh and Das accounted for Russia's Alexander Shibaev and Elena Troshneva 16-14 11-9 11-8 8-11 11-8 to seal a spot in the last 32 stage. They will now take on the formidable pair of Peng Tang and Wing Nam Ng of Hong Kong tomorrow.
In the other second round matches of the main draw, Sharath Kamal and Shamini were routed 0-4 by the German pair of Patrick Franziska and Petrissa Solja. The pair of Amalraj and Patkar lost to Maharu Yoshimura and Kasumi Ishikawa of Japan 2-4.
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