Manav settles for bronze in USA meet

Gandhidham 22, January: India no. 2 paddler Manav Thakkar came up with a stupendous show as he settled for a bronze medal in the recently concluded WTT Feeder Corpus Christi 2024 table tennis tournament played in Texas, USA. The world no. 88 Manav lost to world no. 141 Joao Monterio of Portugal 1-3 (11-8, 8-11, 11-13, 9-11) in the semifinal to take third place on the podium.

The 23-year-old Surti was on the roll in the tourney as he overcome a two-game deficit to win a 3-2 (4-11, 7-11, 11-2, 11-4, 11-6) humdinger against the world no. 70 Marcos Madrid of Mexico in the round of 32.

He then cleaned up world no. 92 Horacio Cifuentes of Argentina 3-0 (11-5, 11-6, 11-9) in the pre-quarterfinal.

Manav had an easy outing in the quarters where he went past Italian Niagol Stoyanov, world no. 121, 3-1 (11-1, 11-6, 7-11, 12-10) to book his semis berth.

India no.1 paddler Harmeet Desai took out world no. 96 Vitor Ishiy of Brazil 3-2 in the round of 32 and romped past Nikhil Kumar of USA (world no. 859) 3-1 to storm into the quarters.

The 30-year-old, however, lost 1-3 to world no 47 Kirill Gerassimenko of Kazakhstan to bring curtains to his journey in the meet.

“I was playing well all through the meet and I am happy with my performance in the first WTT Feeder,” Gujarat’s star player Manav said.