Yashaswini Ghorpade and Harmeet Desai assured India a medal at the Asian Table Tennis Championships on Friday. The pair beat South Korea’s Ganghyeon Park and Daeun Lee in a tense five-setter. This win ends a 72-year wait for India in the event, as they now head to the semi-finals in style.
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India's mixed doubles pair of Yashaswini Ghorpade and Harmeet Desai assured itself of a medal at the Asian Table Tennis Championships on Friday. Yashaswini-Harmeet beat South Korea's Ganghyeon Park and Daeun Lee in a tense five-setter in the quarterfinals to guarantee at least a bronze.
Both losing semi-finalists get bronze medals at the Asian Table Tennis Championships.
This ends a 72-year medal wait for India in the event. Yatin Vyas and Meena Parande had won the silver medal in the 1954 edition. Gool Nasikwala and Kalyan Jayant, who struck gold in 1952, are the only other mixed doubles duo from the nation to have stood on the podium in the continental championships.
Yashaswini-Harmeet edged out Park-Lee 11-6, 8-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-9 in 42 minutes. They had earlier defeated Chinese Taipei's Hsien-Chia Hsu and Ying Syuan Wu in the round of 16, and Indonesia's Citra Rasmi and Muhammad Negara in the round of 32.
The Indian combine takes on Japan's world No. 9 pairing Miwa Harimoto and Sora Matsushima in the semis.
Earlier, another Indian duo -- Syndrela Das and Payas Jain -- reached the last eight stage but lost to China's 12th-ranked Chen Yi and Huang Youzheng.
The scratch pairing of Manav Thakkar and Payas Jain is competing in the men's doubles, having entered the round of 16. Manav and Harmeet have reached the men's singles round of 32, while Syndrela and Swastika Ghosh are both alive in the women's singles draw. Yashaswini and Swastika will also take the table later today for their women's doubles round of 16 match.
India were knocked out in the quarterfinals of the men's teams and women's teams competitions earlier. Both sides lost 0-3 to South Korea.
At the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, India's Diya Chitale and Manush Shah had bagged a historic mixed doubles medal. They had prevailed over Hong Kong's World No. 4 Wong Chung Ting and Doo Hoi Kem to clinch the country's second-ever medal at Asiad mixed doubles after Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra won bronze at Jakarta 2018.