Indian men and women paddlers prevailed over their opponents to romp into the semifinals of the table tennis team events at the 18th Commonwealth Games in Melbourne on Saturday.
Both the men's and women's teams had to stretch themselves to get past Canada and Nigeria respectively with an identical 3-1 margin in the quarterfinals at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatics Centre.
The Indian men began with a flourish as Achanta Sharath Kamal tamed Canada's Peter Paul Pradeeban 11-7, 11-8 and 11-1 in an one-sided affair.
After dropping the first two games, Soumyadeep Roy bounced back to pip Bence Csaba 6-11, 3-11, 11-9, 11-8 and 11-6 in a close contest to give a 2-0 lead to his team.
However, Canada managed to narrow the gap as Faazil Kassam kept his cool in crucial rallies to put it across national champion Subhajit Saha 11-6, 17-15, 3-11 and 11-5.
The fourth tie between Sharath and Bence was a humdinger of a contest with the Nigerian claiming the first two games before the Indian paddler took the next two to draw parity.
However, the ever-reliable Sharath came up triumphant in the decider to propel India into the last four with a 7-11, 4-11, 11-6 11-6 and 11-5 scoreline.