Asian TT: Sharath crashes out, Indian women disappoint

Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal suffered a 0-4 thrashing at the hands of higher rated Japanese Mizutani Jun in the third round to bow out of the 19th Asian Table Tennis Championships in Lucknow.

World number 70 Sharath, the hosts' best bet in the prestigious event, struggled throughout his third round match against the world number 11 on the fifth day of the tournament.

Although the motley crowd present at the Uttar Pradesh Badminton Academy hall cheered Sharath's every point, that could not stop the the lanky Chennai lad losing the game 6-11, 9-11, 5-11, 6-11 in a lop-sided affair.

Sharath got a walk-over from Kim Song Guk of DPR Korea in the previous round.

Compatriot Sourav Chakraborty, who rallied to eliminate Pang Xuejie of Singapore 4-2 in second round, is now the lone Indian hope in one-to-one category of the week-long tournament.

Sourav takes on Ko Lai Chak of Hong Kong, who beat Md Hanif of Bangladesh 4-0, in the third round.

Indian women also had a miserable day as all seven of them failing to cross second round hurdle in singles event.

National champion Kumaresan Shamini and experienced Poulomi Ghatak came up with dismal performances. Shamini surrendered 0-4 to world number 32 Yu Meng Yu of Singapore and then former national champion Poulomi also proved no match to Hyon Ryon Hui of DPR Korea with a 0-4 result.

The story was no different for the highest ranked Indian, Mouma Das (192), who managed a wobbly performance to lose 1-4 to Kim Jong of DPR Korea.

Pooja Sahasrabudhe and Mamata Prabhu were spanked by Cheng I-Ching of Chinese Taipei and Japanese Ai Fukuhara respectively, with an identical 0-4 scoreline.

Madhurika Patkar fell to Lau Sui Fei of Hong Kong 1-4 and youngster Divya Deshpande (0-4) found Yuka Ishigaki too tough an opponent.

In other matches of men's singles event, Anirban Nandy was drubbed 0-4 by Kim Hyok Bang of DPR Korea, Jubin Kumar (0-4) was left clueless by world number 63 Yang Zi of Singapore and Soumyadeep Roy (0-4) was thumped by Chinese Wu Hao.

Devesh Karia lost 0-4 to Wu Chih-Chi of Chinese Taipei, while world number 32 Kishikawa Seiya of Japan got the better of Aman Balgu (1-4).