Muscat, Oman, (Asian independent) Indian paddler Manika Batra moved to the women’s singles round of 16 at the 2022 WTT Contender Muscat after beating Singapore’s Lin Ye at the Sultan Qaboos Sport Complex, here on Wednesday.
The 26-year old Batra beat Ye 3-0 (12-10, 11-8, 11-8) in the round of 32 and will now face Romania’s Bernadette Szocs, a former European Championships silver medallist, in the last sixteen.
However, another Indian player Sreeja Akula lost to French Olympian Jia Nan Yuan 2-3 (11-8, 7-11, 11-8, 9-11, 11-8) in the women’s singles match.
In the mixed doubles, Manika and her partner Sathiyan Gnanasekaran moved into the quarter-finals after receiving a walkover in their round of 16 tie against Kirill Skachkov and Olga Vorobeva. The Indian duo will play Hungary’s Nandor Ecseki and Leila Imre next.
On the other hand, the pair of Archana Kamath and Manav Thakkar also reached the last eight of mixed doubles with a 3-2 (11-9, 14-12, 11-2) win over Turkey’s Ibrahim Gunduz and Sibel Altinkaya.
Meanwhile, both Sathiyan and Batra’s men’s and women’s doubles campaigns ended early.
G Sathiyan and Harmeet Desai lost to Chinese Taipei’s Peng Wang-Wei and Chuang Chih-Yuan 2-3 (7-11, 12-10, 11-4, 11-13, 11-9) in the round of 16 of men’s doubles, an olympics.com report said.
Peng-Chuang will face another Indian pair, Manush Shah and Manav Thakkar in the quarter-finals on Thursday. Shah-Thakkar edged past Brazilian duo Eric Jouti and Vitor Ishiy 3-2 (11-7, 3-11, 11-6, 7-11, 12-14) to progress.
In the women’s doubles, Manika Batra and Archana Kamath also bowed out from the round of 16 after losing to Hungary’s Leila Imre and Mercedes Nagyvaradi 0-3 (11-7, 11-9, 11-6).
