Table Tennis

The Qatar event, the first competition of the 2023 season, will act as a qualifying stage for the World Championships to be held in Durban, South Africa, in May 2023. Action will heat up on Tuesday with most of the top ranked players from Asia having got a bye into the second round of the men's and women's event.

Born in 2000, Sun rose to the top of the world rankings on January 30 for the first time. She topped the recently-released year-end world rankings with 8,270 points. The 22-year-old won titles at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Champions Macao and WTT Cup Finals in October, after helping China claim its fifth consecutive women's title at the World Team Table Tennis Championships in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Prannoy, the lone Indian in the fray in the year-end competition, had started with a defeat against Japan's Kodai Naraoka on Wednesday. On Thursday, he needed to win his second match to maintain his chances of advancing to the next stage. But Prannoy went down to China's Lu Guang Zu in his second Group A match, losing 21-23, 21-17, 19-21 in the one hour and 24 minutes encounter.

Competing at the Huamark Indoor Stadium here, India's top-ranked female table tennis player at world No. 44, Manika defeated Hina, the 2021 Table Tennis World Cup bronze medallist, 4-2 (11-6, 6-11, 11-7, 12-10, 4-11, 11-2) in the playoff to decide the third place.

The India pair earned 280 ranking points for their performance at the event which helped them overtake Hong Kong's Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist Doo Hoi Kem and her two-time world championship bronze medal-winning partner Wong Chun-ting for the world No.5 spot.

It was the third consecutive ATP Tour title for the Canadian player. "It's been an amazing week. Once again in the final, not getting broken all week... (It's been) a long year, a long stretch of wins, and it's not over. So hopefully I can keep going, but right now I'm feeling all the good emotions that come with winning a tournament. It's amazing," said Auger-Aliassime after the match.

While Sathiyan slipped to 565 points following the WTT Champions Macau Open that ended on Sunday and was overtaken by Slovakia's Yang Wang who now has 615 points. The 2022 Commonwealth Games double gold medallist Sharath maintained his ranking of 43 with ranking points of 526 points. Manush Shah was the next best Indian player in men's singles with a ranking of 113 while Harmeet Desai is at 122. Manav Thakkar is at 142.

Wang, 22, defeated world No.1 Fan Zhendong to win the men's singles title in a close match going deep into the seventh game 11-5, 12-14, 12-10, 8-11, 11-1, 9-11, 11-8. "Today's match was really intense. I feel really lucky in Macao because I have achieved good results here," said Wang, who won the postponed WTT Champions Macao 2021 China Stars in January this year.

The team coached by national coach S Raman and missing veteran player and 2022 Commonwealth Games double gold medallist Achanta Sharath Kamal, will be hoping to make it to the knockout stage from the five-team group. The 32 teams in the fray have been divided into seven groups with Groups 5, 6 and 7 having four teams each while Groups 1 to 4 have five each.

The 41-year-old Swiss great, the winner of 20 Grand Slam singles titles, teamed up with his long-time friend and rival, Nadal in his last contest, losing a doubles match to the American duo of Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe of the United States 4-6, 7-6(2), 11-9.