Indian sports wrap, December 1: Manika, Manav impress but India loses again at Mixed Team Table Tennis World Cup

TABLE TENNIS

ITTF Mixed Team World Cup: India loses to Japan, suffers second straight defeat in group stage

India suffered its second straight loss in Group 2 at the ITTF Mixed Team World Cup as it went down 4-8 to Japan at the Sichuan Gymnasium in Chengdu.

Shunsuke Togami and Miwa Harimoto gave Japan the perfect start as they beat Akash Pal and Yashaswini Ghorpade 3-0 (11-6, 11-9, 11-5) in the mixed doubles rubber.

However, Manika Batra and Manav Thakkar kept India alive in the tie by stunning higher-ranked opponents in their respective singles rubbers.

While Manika won 2-1 (9-11, 11-8, 11-8) against World No. 8 Mima Ito, Manav took down World No. 8 Sora Matsushima 2-1 (11-9, 11-4, 6-11) to reduce the deficit to just one game.

But Ghorpade and Diya Chitale could not take the tie to a deciding men’s doubles rubber as they lost 0-3 (8-11, 3-11, 5-11) to Ito and Hina Hayata.

On Sunday, India lost its first match 6-8 to Croatia.

India faces Australia, which also lost both its matches to Japan and Croatia, in its final group-stage match on Tuesday.

Only the top two teams from the group will qualify for the next round.

– Team Sportstar

ATHLETICS

Nikhil, Ashwini shine at Ahmedabad Marathon

Nikhil Singh and Ashvini Jadhav won the men’s and women’s open events at the 9th Adani Ahmedabad Marathon, which witnessed the participation of 24,000 runners across categories.

The half-marathon (21 km) event was won by Dharmender and Farheen Firdouse, respectively. The winners of the 10km open event were Rajan Yadav and Neeta Rani.

The event had a prize pool of over ₹40 lakh. The event is recognised by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) and listed on the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races (AIMS) Global Marathon Event List.

-PTI

Published on Dec 01, 2025