Jai Sathiyan fought hard against Sweden's Matisse Flak in the men's singles semi-final of ITTF Challenge plus Oman Open on Sunday but he could not recover from the challenge, which had to satisfy the bronze medal. The fourth-seeded Sathiyan lost to Mattias Flack 8-11, 11-7, 9-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9, 10-12.
Top-Seeded Sweden and the Indian had the measure of each other with the two winning alternate games to take the issue to the decider, where the Swede had a slight advantage until deuce. But once he broke Sathiyan to go up, it was all over for the Indian as his opponent wrapped it up with the winner.
The only Indian to survive so far, Sathiyan got past Frenchman Emmanuel Lebesson in the quarterfinals 4-1 (11-9, 11-7, 11-9, 6-11, 12-10) after having dominated the first three games. While the seventh-seeded Frenchman showed intentions of coming back, Sathiyan arrested any such possibility winning the fifth game
With this, the Indians were successful in getting the silver medal in their first major tournament. It was his biggest tournament after winning the national women's singles title in Cuttack in January.
In the quarter-finals, Xian finished the match of France's Emmanuel 4-1. In round 16, he beat Anthony Amalraj 4-1. Another Indian, Sharath Kamal, got out in the round 16 after losing to Croatia's Pucar Tomislav 1-4.
Archana Kamath finished off in the ITTF Challenger Oman Open after losing in the Super Elegant Under-21 Women's Singles Final. She defeated Japan's Top-seed Satsuki Odo 7-11, 8-11, 6-11 on Saturday.
In fact, on her way to the finals, the Indian had accounted for No. 3 seed Maria Tailakova of Russia in a tough five-game semi-final, after trailing 0-2. The Indian bounced back nicely to win 6-11, 5-11, 11-2, 11-6, and 11-9. In the quarters, she had beaten Singapore's Rui Xuan Goi 11-7, 11-5, 11-8 after downing Russian Valeria Shcherbatykh in straight games.
It was disappointing for India in women singles as both Madhurika Patkar and Riti Shankar failed to go past the first round of the main draw.
In men's doubles, Sathiyan and Sharath lost their quarterfinals to the Russian pair of Denis Ivonin and Vladimir Sidorenko 2-3 and so did Archana and Sathiyan in mixed doubles first round. However, the other pair of Madhurika Patkar and Harmeet Desai bowed out in the quarters.
