7 months ago
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The past clip top-flight array tennis came to Odisha — the unofficial superior of India’s sporting events — lockdown wasn’t portion of regular vocabulary, the authorities was inactive nether determination rule, A. Sharath Kamal was Indian sport’s poster boy, and Cuttack had conscionable hosted the 2019 Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships.
Six years on, the athletics returns to the state, this clip to Bhubaneswar, with the 28th Asian Table Tennis Team Championships. The Kalinga Indoor Athletics Stadium volition play big to much than 300 delegates from 22 Asian nations implicit 5 days starting Saturday. The world’s top-ranked paddlers — Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu among women, Wang Chuqin and Lin Shidong among men — header a tract brimming with world-class talent.
Though the lawsuit serves arsenic a qualifier for adjacent year’s World Championships successful London, India’s men’s and women’s teams person already sealed nonstop qualification. The focus, therefore, volition beryllium connected defending the duplicate bronze medals won successful 2023 — a task that volition trial the hosts’ extent and resolve.
The men’s squad, led by the bespectacled duo of Manush Shah and Manav Thakkar, faces a stern quarterfinal against Hong Kong connected Tuesday. In the women’s camp, with Sreeja Akula sidelined by a enarthrosis injury, Manika Batra volition trust connected Diya Chitale to support India’s medal hopes alive.
The seedings: Men: China, Chinese Taipei, Korea Republic, India, Japan, Hong Kong (China).
Women: Japan, China, Hong Kong (China), India, DPR Korea, Korea Republic.
Quarterfinal line-up: Men: Japan vs DPR Korea, Q1 vs India, Hong Kong (China) vs Republic of Korea, Q2 vs China.
Women: China vs Q1, Japan vs Republic of Korea, India vs Hong Kong (China), Q2 vs Chinese Taipei.
Qualifier groups: Women: Group A: Thailand, Mongolia, Sri Lanka.
Group B: Singapore, Kazakhstan, Maldives.
Group C: Chinese Taipei, Uzbekistan, Macau (China), Bangladesh
Group D: Malaysia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal.
Men: Group A: Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan.
Group B: Iran, Mongolia, Maldives.
Group C: Singapore, Uzbekistan, Oman.
Group D: Malaysia, DPR Korea, Macau (China).
Group E: Thailand, Qatar, Nepal, Bangladesh.
