Doha, (Samajweekly) Indian paddler Manika Batra and her partner Archana Kamath settled for a bronze medal at the WTT Star Contender Doha 2022 after losing to Chinese Taipei’s Li Yu-Jhun and Cheng I-Ching in the women’s doubles semi-finals, here on Wednesday.
The world No 6 Indian pair lost 0-3 (8-11, 6-11, 7-11) to Chinese Taipei’s duo at the Lusail Sports Arena in the Qatari capital.
Earlier, Batra and Archana, the women’s doubles second seeds at the meet, enjoyed a good run in Doha. The Indian duo had beaten Hong Kong’s Soo Wai Yam Minnie and Lee Ho Ching, both part of the Hong Kong squad which won the team bronze at Tokyo 2020, in the quarter-finals to enter the last four.
With Batra and Archana exit, India’s campaign at the Doha meet also came to an end.
Manika and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, India’s top-ranked women’s and men’s singles players, were both ousted in the round of 16 of women’s and men’s singles respectively.
Meanwhile, Sharath Kamal lost both his first round singles and doubles matches. Sharath had partnered with Manav Thakkar for the men’s doubles main draw. Batra and G Sathiyan’s mixed doubles campaign also didn’t progress beyond the first round.
On the other hand, neither of the two Indian teams which made it through the qualifiers, Ayhika Mukherjee/ Sutirtha Mukherjee in women’s doubles and Sanil Shetty/Amalraj Anthony in women’s doubles, managed to win their first match of the main draw.
