Doubles pairs in Round of 16; Sharath Kamal and Sreeja Akula ousted

Sharath Kamal and Sreeja Akula crashed out in singles while the pairs of Sharath-G Sathiyan (men's doubles) and Sathiyan-Manika Batra (mixed doubles) advanced to the Round of 16 of the World Table Tennis Championships Finals on Monday.

Sathiyan and Manika, ranked world No. 5 in mixed doubles, overcame a slow start against Brazilians Eric Jouti and Luca Kumahara to win 3-1 (8-11, 11-7, 11-6, 11-6). They will take on the Swedish combo of Christina Kallberg and Tuls Moregard for a place in the quarter-finals.

Minutes after losing his singles Round of 64 to 33rd-ranked Korean Lee Sang Su 4-0 (4-11, 11-13, 8-11, 10-12), Sharath combined with Sathiyan to get the job done in doubles. After easing through the first two games 11-5 and 11-4 against Denmark's Anders Lind and Hungarian Bence Majoros, the Indian combo came back from 3-7 down to win the third 15-13.

Young Diya Chitale and Sreeja Akula dished out a spirited show in a 3-0 (8-11, 8-11, 11-13) defeat against China's No. 1 and 2 Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu, also the top women's doubles pair. The Indians went toe to toe till 8-8 in the first game and even led 8-4 in the third with Diya's forehand causing trouble before the Chinese stepped up.

It wasn't Sreeja's day as she also went down in her singles rubber to world No. 10 Ying Han, managing just 12 points in a 2-11, 4-11, 2-11, 4-11 defeat.

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