India lose 3-8 to USA in ITTF Mixed Team WC opener

Chengdu: The Indian table tennis team suffered an 8-3 loss to America in their opening Group 1 match in the first stage of the ITTF Mixed Team World Cup on Sunday. The tie begins with a mixed doubles rubber, where India’s Snehit Suravajjula and Poymantee Baisya lost 1-2 (10-12, 8-11, 11-4) to USA’s Naresh Nandan and Ke Tiffany. In the women’s singles, Yashaswini Ghorpade Yashaswini Ghorpade went down 1-2 (9-11,8-11,11-7) against Sally Moyland, followed by the men’s singles loss of Jeet Chandra (9-11,9-11,11-7) by similar margins against Xiangjing Zhang. In the subsequent men’s doubles rubber, Snehit Suravajjula and Jeet Chandra lost 2-0 (9-11, 9-11) to cap off a disappointing day for the Indian team. As per the tournament format, each rubber, whether singles or doubles, consists of three games. The first team to win eight games wins the overall team match. India have been drawn in Group 1 for the first stage of the tournamen with reigning champions and top seeds China, Australia and USA. After round-robin matches, the top two from the group will advance to the second stage of the competition. India team, without the experienced campaigners like Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, will take on hosts China in their second match on Monday. This is the second edition of the tournament. The inaugural edition was also held in Chengdu last year. Hosts China emerged as the champions while India failed to make it past the first stage. –IANS