Tokyo 2020: Sharath Kamal advances, while Sutirtha Mukherjee bows out in table tennis

Tokyo, Jul 26(UNI) Veteran Indian table tennis player Sharath Kamal won a hard-fought match against Tiago Apolonia of Portugal 2-11, 11-8, 11-5, 9-11, 11-6, 11-9 in the second round of the men’s singles at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium here on Monday.

Sharath had earlier exited the mixed doubles table tennis event along with Manika Batra.

World No. 29 Sharath Kamal, seeded 20th in the singles will next face reigning Olympic and world champion Ma Long of China.

On the other hand, India’s Sutirtha Mukherjee bowed out of the Tokyo Olympics after losing in straight games to veteran Portuguese player Fu Yu 11-3, 11- 3, 11-5, 11-5 in the second round of the women’s singles table tennis on Monday.

The 24-year-old Sutirtha had earlier beaten the higher-ranked Linda Bergstrom on her Olympic debut.

Sutirtha, despite making a confident start could not repeat the heroics of her first match and it was the 42-year-old Fu Yu who dictated the match, taking advantage of Sutirtha’s slow returns to nail her forehands and was rarely troubled as she focused on getting her returns in and won the match when Sutirtha netted a backhand smash.

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