WTT Star Contender Chennai: Manav Thakkar secures semifinal spot after beating Korea’s Lim Jong-hoon

Manav Thakkar became India’s first-ever man to reach the semifinals of a WTT Star Contender event with a come-from-behind win over Korea’s Lim Jong-hoon in Chennai on Saturday.

Down one game to two and trailing 2-6 in the fourth, Thakkar had an incredible streak of eighteen points to turn the match on its head. The Indian beat World No. 43 Lim 3-2 (5-11, 12-10, 3-11, 11-6, 11-1) in a 36-minute thriller.

World No. 63 Thakkar, country’s top-ranked male player, kept the Indian challenge alive as he set up a semifinal clash with unseeded Frenchman Thibault Poret, who defeated local wildcard Snehit Suravajjula 3-1 (11-4, 6-11, 11-7, 11-6) in their last-eight match.

“I played with him last year twice, and both times, I lost after I had a match point. So, this time, I was very well prepared, but I was very surprised that when I started off, he was also really very well prepared. He was not giving me easy points. He was putting me under pressure. I had almost no solutions until the end, but then, I just started to make long services and opened up the game,” said Thakkar after the win.

“I tried to play fast to give him less time to think, and as I started to do that, I saw that he was not able to find solutions. I became very calm,” he added.

The one against Lim was Thakkar’s second impressive win of the day, as earlier, he had edged out Germany’s Andre Bertelsmeier 3-2 (10-12, 12-10, 15-13, 6-11, 11-5) in a nail-biting round of 16 match. It involved the Indian saving a combined total of five game points across the sets he managed to clinch.

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On a day when the 42-year-old Achanta Sharath Kamal, India’s most decorated paddler, was sent into retirement after a loss to Snehit in the round of 16, Thakkar’s run to the last-four stage came as a perfect moment of transition.

Elsewhere, Tomokazu Harimoto (Japan) and Hugo Calderano (Brazil), the top two seeds in men’s singles, were stunned in the round of 16 itself. So were Omar Assar, the fifth-seeded Egyptian, and eighth-seeded Japanese Sora Matsushima. Third-seeded Dane Jonathan Groth was knocked out in the quarterfinals.

Korea’s Oh Junsung will take on Flavien Coton, another unseeded Frenchman, in the other semifinal.

Women’s Singles

Krittwika Roy, the sole Indian in the round of 16 in women’s singles, went down 0-3 (4-11, 2-11, 7-11) to Japanese World No. 22 Miyu Nagasaki in just 14 minutes.

The trend of title favourites being eliminated early continued in the women’s section as well. Top seed Hina Hayata (Japan) and third seed Satsuki Odo (Japan) were shown the exit door in the round of 16.

Second-seeded Japanese Miwa Harimoto will face fourth-seeded Korean Shin Yubin, while 13th-seeded Japanese Honoka Hashimoto will be up against unseeded Korean Kim Nayeong in the semifinals.