New Delhi: Indian men suffered a 0-3 thrashing at the hands of a much superior Singapore as the hosts settled for a silver medal in the team event at the 19th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships here on Wednesday.
The Indian paddlers displayed flashes of brilliance to create some excitement among the home supporters at the Thyagaraj Stadium here but the difference in class between the two teams proved decisive at the end in the summit clash.
With the home team trailing 0-2, young paddler Sanil Shetty (ranked 332nd) lost to Singapore's Liang Ma in an excruciatingly close battle that extended the full distance of five sets. Shetty started tentatively against his 174th ranked opponent who raced away to 8-1 lead in the first game. The 23-year-old Indian tried hard to make some amends but could not prevent Ma from bagging the first set 11-8.
The Mumbai lad was impeccable near the table and his strong back-hand returns matched that of his opponent and he took the game 11-9. The long rallies in the match provided excitement to the sparsely filled arena.
The left-handed Indian then went on to clinch the next game 11-8 to lead the contest 2-1. With India having an upper hand for the first time in the contest, it looked like the match was heading to the reverse duel. But the 22-year-old Singaporean had other plans. Ma upped his game and forced Shetty to make errors and took the the fourth 11-9 after trailing 0-4.
In the decider too, Shetty was having an upper hand as he was 6-3 up. But the Indian squandered the initiative as he crumbled under pressure to hand the Singapore side their third gold medal on the trot in the team event of the Championship.
"I should have finished the match in the fourth game as I was leading 4-0. From there on he (Ma) played better. Also, I committed lot errors in the final game," Shetty said.
Singapore had beaten India in the finals of the 2007 and 2009 edition of the Championships as well. Earlier, Soumyajit Ghosh and Achantha Sharath Kamal lost their respective matches without giving much fight.
India started with Ghosh (187) who seemed over-aggressive at the start of his match against Jian Zhan. His strategy paid dividends initially and was on the verge of giving the hosts a perfect start with scoreline reading 10-6.
However, the experienced Singaporean, who is also the highest ranked player at 25th, fought back to snatch the game 13-11. From then on, it was one-way traffic for Zhan as he completely dominated the tie against error-prone Ghosh. Many of the Indian's shots failed to find the table as he made returns with hard hands. He lost the next two games 11-8, 11-3.
Much was expected from Indian old war horse Sharath Kamal. But the 70th ranked Indian meekly surrendered to Hu Li. The Indian proved no match against his opponent he had beaten on earlier occasions and went down 4-11, 4-11, 9-11.
In the women's event also, Singapore thrash England 3-0 to bag the gold.
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