Former Commonwealth Games champion Manika Batra breezed into the second round of the women’s singles event at the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships Finals 2025 in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday.
World No. 46 Manika Batra defeated Nigeria’s Fatimo Bello, ranked 89th, in straight games 4-0 (11-5, 11-6, 11-8, 11-2) in her opening round match. She will face 17-year-old Park Gahyeon of the Republic of Korea next.
India’s top-ranked men’s singles table tennis player Manav Thakkar, the world No. 49, also got his campaign off to a good start with a 4-1 (11-3, 11-8, 6-11, 11-7, 14-12) victory over 168th-ranked Timothy Choi of New Zealand.
Teenager Ankur Bhattacharjee, however, bowed out in the first round. The 18-year-old Indian table tennis player lost 4-1 (11-4, 7-11, 9-11, 10-12, 8-11) to world No. 129 Lam Siu Hang of Hong Kong China.
In mixed doubles, Manush Shah and Diya Chitale made light work of Algeria’s Mehdi Bouloussa and Malissa Nasri, winning 3-0 (11-2, 11-7, 11-6).
The two Indian table tennis players won the mixed doubles title at the WTT Contender Tunis earlier this year and also advanced to the second round in their respective singles draws on Saturday.
In men’s doubles, Harmeet Desai and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran exited in the opening round after a 3-1 (9-11, 12-10, 14-16, 10-12) defeat to Austria’s Maciej Kolodziejczyk and Moldova’s Vladislav Ursu.
Desai also suffered an early exit in mixed doubles. He and Yashaswini Ghorpade led French pair Thibault Poret and Leana Hochart 2-0 but squandered three match points to ultimately lose 3-2 (11-8, 11-6, 10-12, 8-11, 10-12).
Later in the day, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran lost to Poret in the men’s singles round of 128 with a 4-0 (11-5, 11-6, 11-7, 11-6). Yashaswini Ghorpade lost to France’s Jia Nan Yuan 4-1 (7-11, 11-8, 9-11, 9-11, 8-11) in women’s singles.
