Indian men shine in C’wealth TT

Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal led the attack with two impressive victories as the Indian team drubbed Australia and hosts Scotland with an identical 3-0 scoreline in 18th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship in Glasgow.

Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal led the attack with two impressive victories as the Indian team drubbed Australia and hosts Scotland with an identical 3-0 scoreline in 18th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship in Glasgow.

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World number 72 Sharath first defeated Australian K S Tran 11-6, 11-7, 11-3 in the first match of the second round and then mauled Scotland's C Howieson 11-6, 12-10, 11-8 in the second outing as the Indian team rode on the twin victories to be on top of the points tally.

Former national champion Subhajit Saha beat Australian R Frank 11-3 11-4 11-9, while compatriot Pathik Mehta survived some anxious moments before beating D Powell 7-11 11-2 6-11 13-11 11-6 to fashion India's first win in the second round.

In the next match, Saha came from behind to tame G Rumgay of Scotland 7-11, 11-8, 11-6, 11-3, before Mehta hardly broke a sweat to spank S Crawford 11-4, 11-4, 11-4. India next take on England in the third stage-two tie.

Indian women had a mixed day in second round as they defeated Wales and Canada 3-0 each, but went down to Singapore (0-3) with the paddlers including another Olympian Neha Aggarwal proving no match to their opponents.

In mixed doubles, all the five Indian pairs including that of national champions Sharath and Kumaresan Shamini got byes to enter second round of the main draw.