Doha, (Samajweekly) The India mixed doubles pair of Manika Batra and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran advanced to the semi-finals of the 2022 WTT Contender Doha at the Lusail Sports Arena, here on Tuesday.
The Indian duo ranked world No 7, defeated the world No 329 pair of Christina Kallberg and Kristian Karlsson of Sweden 3-1 (11-7, 9-11, 11-9, 11-8) in the quarter-finals. Batra and Gnanasekaran will now face world No 4 Wong Chun Ting and Doo Hoi Kem of Hong Kong.
In the women’s doubles, Manika and Archana Kamath, who won the WTT Contender in Lasko last year, went down to Chen Szu-Yu and Huang Yi-Hua in the quarter-finals.
The Indian pair, ranked sixth in the world, lost to their opponents from Chinese Taipei 0-3 (11-5, 11-9, 11-6).
Later in the day, world No 34 Sharath Kamal will be up against world No 59 Lim Jonghoon of South Korea in the round of 16. He overcame Qatar’s Fahed Almughanne 3-0 in the men’s singles round of 32.
Earlier, Gnanasekaran, world No 33, crashed out after a loss to lower-ranked Yuan Licen of China in the first round of men’s singles. In the women’s singles, Manika, world No 46, also lost in the first round.
