Sreeja Akula created history by reaching the women’s singles final of the WTT Contender.
In what will go down as a memorable day for Indian table tennis, a total of seven Indian players — one in the women’s singles final, both pairs in the women’s doubles finals, and one pair in the men’s doubles final — qualified for the title clashes of the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender tournament in Lagos, Nigeria.
While the players managed to win some intense matches, the most impressive victory of the day was Sutirtha Mukherjee beating World No.8 and teenage South Korean sensation Shin Yubin 3-2 (11-9, 3-11, 0-11, 11-9, 11-6) in the quarterfinal of the women’s singles event.
She, however, later lost to compatriot Sreeja Akula in the semifinal.
Shocker in #WTTLagos ‼️
Sutirtha Mukherjee knocks out defending champ Shin Yubin 🫨#WTTContender Lagos is LIVE 👉 https://t.co/obRmtF5f8o pic.twitter.com/gXji2SIQ2W
— World Table Tennis (@WTTGlobal) June 22, 2024
The Indian contingent is competing at a WTT tournament for the first time under recently-appointed head coach Massimo Costantini, who is in his third stint as India’s coach. The Italian told The Indian Express earlier this month that he aims to make India among the top-3 in Asia and the tournament in Lagos has been a promising start. A bit historic too, since it’s the first time an Indian will play in the women’s singles final of a WTT Contender event, though one wouldn’t look much into it given that the level of playing field wasn’t extraordinary.
India could’ve had two players in that final but Ayhika Mukherjee lost her semifinal tie against 16-year-old Chinese Ding Yijie, who is ranked outside the top 500 in the world.
The only disappointment was in the men’s singles event where none of the players got past the quarterfinal stage.
This is how Sreeja Akula became a #WTTLagos finalist after saving 3 match points 🔥#WTTContender #TableTennis #PingPong pic.twitter.com/iNMkYFfKns
— World Table Tennis (@WTTGlobal) June 22, 2024
This tournament in Lagos is part of India’s preparation camp ahead of the Olympics.
While Sutirtha is not part of India’s Olympic squad — she lost out to Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, and Archana Kamath with Ayhika Mukherjee being the reserve player – she showed that she too is capable of beating a top-10 player. And Yubin is a proven star.
Playing with her short pimpled rubber on the forehand, Sutirtha was able to absorb the spin by Yubin and finish off points with her ferocious forehand.
Coach Costantini is using these WTT tournaments to try out different doubles combinations ahead of the Olympics. It’s the first time that both the Indian men’s and women’s teams have qualified for the team event at the Olympics and the doubles rubber, being the first match of the tie, could prove vital to the teams’ fortunes.
The women’s pair of Sreeja and Archana – who will most likely be the doubles pairing at the Olympics – are looking in fine touch. After romping to an easy 3-0 win in the quarterfinal, all eyes were on their semifinal clash against Asian Games medallists Ayhika and Sutirtha, especially since the latter duo had been overlooked for the Olympics. Sreeja and Archana though, showed their superiority by blanking the Mukherjees 3-0 (11-7, 11-5, 12-10). In the final, they will face a young Indian pair of Diya Chitale and Yashaswini Ghorpade.
The men’s doubles pair of Harmeet Desai and Manav Thakkar did well too, though they were outplayed in the semifinal by the Chinese pair of Kang Youde and Ning Xiankun.
Before coming to Lagos, the Indian team had an intense training camp in Bengaluru overseen by Costantini. The first thing he did there was make the players undergo a performance analytics test and while he wasn’t exactly happy with the initial results, players have revealed that he has given them a detailed plan so that they reach their peak fitness before the Olympics. And if Lagos is any indicator, they’re doing just fine.
