India spent ₹25 crore on 10 athletes for the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. The team brought home one medal, as Manush Shah and Diya Chitale won bronze in mixed doubles. This result kept India’s medal streak alive for three editions. Many other hopes fell early, but this win showed real quality.
On the face of it, India's table tennis campaign at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games might invite an uncomfortable reading. But to label the outing simply as dismal or disappointing would be an oversimplification. A closer look at the results, the draws, the quality of opposition and, not least, the circumstances in which the team prepared for the Games suggests that India's return was broadly in line with what could reasonably have been expected.
The bronze won by Manush Shah and Diya Chitale in mixed doubles extended India's run of winning a table tennis medal to three successive editions of the Asian Games.
In 2018, the men's team won a historic bronze before A. Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra added another in mixed doubles. Three years later in Hangzhou, Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee produced a surprise run to the women's doubles bronze. In Aichi-Nagoya, Manush and Diya ensured that the sequence continued.
And unlike the Hangzhou medal, this one was not entirely unexpected. The sixth-seeded pair had been among the world's leading mixed doubles combinations, having qualified for the 2025 WTT Finals, the season-ending event reserved for the top eight pairs. They justified that pedigree by overcoming third seeds Wong Chun Ting and Doo Hoi Kem of Hong Kong in the quarterfinals to assure India of a medal.
They eventually lost to China's Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha in the semifinals, but by then the primary objective had been achieved.
The medal that was expected
The mixed doubles bronze was particularly important because it had been one of India's two realistic medal avenues, alongside men's doubles. The latter, however, disappeared early.
Manav Thakkar and Manush, seeded second, were beaten by Japan's Tomokazu Harimoto and Hiroto Shinozuka in the round of 32. The result was striking not merely because of the difference in seeding, but also because Harimoto, one of the most celebrated singles players on the international circuit, does not regularly play doubles on the WTT circuit.
With Japan hosting the Asian Games, Harimoto chose to partner Shinozuka. The combination proved too strong for the Indians as the Japanese took home the silver medal.
The defeat had echoes of the 2008 Olympics, when India's celebrated tennis doubles combination of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi suffered an early exit against Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka.
Harmeet Desai and G. Sathiyan fared better, reaching the pre-quarterfinals before losing to Japan's Sora Matsushima and Shunsuke Togami.
India's leading men's doubles pair has been expected to carry a significant portion of the country's medal hopes, but the duo has struggled to translate individual international success into team-event results. Their performances at the Asian Team Championships in Bhubaneswar last year had already raised questions, and Aichi-Nagoya offered another reminder that the burden cannot rest on two players alone.
Singles tell a different story
The singles results, meanwhile, need to be viewed through the prism of the wider Asian table tennis ecosystem.
Manush reached the pre-quarterfinals before losing to China's Lin Shidong, while Manav exited in the round of 32 against North Korea's U Tae Ryong. Sreeja Akula lost to North Korea's Pyon Song Gyong in the women's round of 32, while Yashaswini Ghorpade reached the pre-quarterfinals before going down to Japan's third seed Miwa Harimoto.
There were also results elsewhere in the draw that illustrated why world rankings can be misleading at an Asian Games.
Iran's Noshad Alamiyan, a specialist with an awkward left-handed backhand game, stunned Harimoto and went on to win a singles bronze. Players from nations like Iran, Malaysia, and North Korea do not regularly feature on the gruelling WTT circuit, meaning their rankings often fail to accurately convey the immense quality they can produce on the table.
India, too, experienced that exact disconnect.
Women exceeded expectations
If the men's team was the biggest disappointment, the women's team arguably gave India its most encouraging performance beyond the medal.
Sreeja and Yashaswini played pivotal roles as India topped its group after overcoming Singapore. The Indians then produced a stirring victory over Hangzhou bronze medallist Thailand in the pre-quarterfinals before their campaign ended against North Korea in the quarterfinals.
The 3-0 defeat was decisive, but it came after India had already exceeded the expectations that accompanied the team into the tournament.
The men's team, in contrast, never quite got going. A lack of resistance against Iran in the league stage left India facing South Korea in the pre-quarterfinals. Manush pushed Oh Junsung hard, but Manav let slip six game points in the opening game against An Jaehyun. India eventually went down 3-0.
The result also exposed a structural concern. With Harmeet and Sathiyan no longer at their competitive peak, India lacks a formidable third men's player capable of consistently taking on the world's best. That leaves Manav and Manush carrying an even greater load, something that has become increasingly difficult to sustain across team, singles, and doubles competitions.
A chaotic build-up
Any assessment of the campaign must also account for what happened before the players reached Japan. The preparation was hardly ideal.
The controversy surrounding Manika Batra's exclusion from the Asian Games squad in June and July became a prolonged public dispute over selection criteria. Then came the administrative crisis within the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), culminating in the Sports Ministry suspending the federation's recognition in August.
The uncertainty also affected the national team's coaching structure. Massimo Costantini's contract had expired on May 15, and his reappointment as High Performance Director was delayed amid the TTFI's administrative turmoil. He eventually joined the Indian contingent only a week before the Asian Games.
There was no conventional preparatory camp. Players also had reservations about the amended selection criteria.
The circumstances hardly provided the ideal environment for a sport in which marginal gains -- a few additional sessions with a specific sparring partner, a tactical adjustment, or simply time spent together on and off the table -- can be the difference between a podium finish and an early exit.
And yet, Manush and Diya managed to deliver the medal India had hoped for.
The next question
That, ultimately, may be the most important takeaway from Aichi-Nagoya. India's table tennis programme is not short of individual talent. It features world-class doubles combinations, a resilient women's team capable of beating established Asian opponents, and a growing group of youngsters making their presence felt.
However, the gap between having medal contenders and consistently winning medals remains. The men's team desperately needs a credible third player. The leading doubles pairs need to convert international rankings into results on the biggest multi-sport stages. The women need to build on their encouraging run rather than treat the quarterfinal as their absolute ceiling.
And the sport needs a more stable administrative and coaching environment in which those objectives can be pursued.
One medal from 10 athletes and a reported expenditure of more than ₹25 crore does not, by itself, tell the full story of Indian table tennis at Aichi-Nagoya.
The bronze won by Manush and Diya validated a partnership that has spent years climbing towards the world's best. The women's team showed that India can punch above its weight. Meanwhile, the men's team exposed the consequences of over-reliance on a thin core.
So, perhaps the more pertinent question is not whether India did enough in Japan. It is whether Indian table tennis can use the medal, and the misses surrounding it, to build a broader, deeper programme before the next Asian Games.