Sathiyan-Ankita win mixed doubles gold

Surat, Dec 20: The Indian pair of G. Sathiyan and Ankita defeated compatriots Soumyajit Ghosh and Mouma Das 11-7, 8-11, 15-13, 11-7 to win the gold medal in the Avadh 20th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships at the Pandit Dindayal Upadhyay Indoor Stadium here on Sunday.

Soumyajit and Mouma had to be satisfied with the silver, while the bronze went to another Indian pair of Sanil Shetty and Manika Batra.

With these three medals in pocket, along with the teams’ gold (men) and silver (women), India overhauled their highest medal tally -- they won nine medals from the last edition at New Delhi -- to reach the figure of 16 medals.

It was a clean sweep of medals for the Indian men’s pairs, thanks to a fine performance by Sudhanshu Grover and Abhishek Yadav, who outsmarted the No. 2 seed duo of Singapore’s Panx Xue Ji and Chen Feng in the fourth quarter-fil.

Grover and Yadav beat their rivals 11-6, 10-12, 7-11, 11-9, 11-8 to earn a semi-fil meeting with Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet Desai who got a walkover from the Scottish pair of Rumgay Gavin and Craig Howieson.

The other semi-fil will feature Anthony Amalraj and Sanil Shetty who accounted for Cyprus’ Marios Yiangou and Hristo Hristonov 11-2, 11-5, 11-4, and Sathiyan and Devesh Karia, the two benefitting from the walkover of top-seeded Singapore duo of Li Hu and Chew Zhe Yu Clarence.

Earlier in the day, Li Hu pulled out citing side strain and fever. IANS