Qatar Open: Sharath loses, Indian challenge ends

Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal became a second-round casualty as Indian challenge in the Pro Tour Qatar Open table tennis championships came to an end in Doha.

World number 73, Sharath survived some anxious moments before beating Weixing Chen of Austria 4-2 in first round of the main draw, but then proved no match to Russian Alexei Smirnov and went down 1-4 in the next stage.

All the three woman paddlers, including new national champion Poulomi Ghatak, who qualified for the main draw of the tournament also fell by the wayside in the first round on Friday.

Poulomi (1-4) failed to overcome Singaporean Tianwei Feng, while her doubles partner Mouma Das put up a spirited fight before going down 3-4 to Huajun Jiang of Hong Kong.

Another Indian Madhurika Patkar was handed a 2-4 defeat by Chinese Shiwen Liu.

The pair of Poulomi and Mouma, which was the only Indian party to get direct entry to the main draw in women's doubles category, also failed to clear the first-round hurdle.

They were spanked 0-4 by Japanese duo of Hiroko Fujii and Misako Wakamiya.