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Indian boys excel before losing in Asian TT

Reigning champions Korea and China set up a title clash for the boys' team championship title in the Indian Oil Servo seventh Asian Junior Table Tennis championships in Madras this evening.

Indian paddlers, who earlier in the day created history by entering the semi-finals in the boys' and girls' sections, crashed out of the boys' event, losing to China 0-3. Korea defeated Japan 3-1 in the other semi-final.

Earlier, it was a great moment for Indian table tennis as India 'A' came from behind to beat Chinese Taipei in the quarter-finals after an engrossing five-match rubber.

After Subhajit Saha gave India a 1-0 lead, with a 21-19, 23-21 victory over Lin Ching Hung, Soumyadeep Roy and Ranabir Das negated the advantage, losing their singles to Wen Chin Hsuan and Pan Chun Hung 9-21, 11-21 and 17-21, 21-15, 8-21 respectively.

But a confident looking Saha, not overawed by the situation, pulled off a superb 16-21, 23-21, 22-20 victory over Wen Chin Hsuan, to stretch the contest to the fifth singles.

With mounting tension, Soumyadeep Roy kept his cool and won the decider against Lin Ching Hung 21-19, 21-18 to enable India 'A' enter the semi-finals.

However, India's joy was shortlived. Pitted against a tougher opponent in China in the semi-finals, Subhajit Saha, Soumyadeep Roy and Subham Chowdhry could do little of note and lost their matches in straight sets.

UNI