Desai, Sathiyan sail into main draw of India Open

Harmeet Desai and Gnanasekaran Sathiyan became the latest Indian entrants into the main draw of the ITTF World Tour India Open here today.
Harmeet, who made a flying start to his campaign winning both his matches on the opening day of the USD 150,000 tournament, beat Tzu-Hsiang Hung of Taipei in straight games to maintain a clean slate in the qualification stages.
Sathiyan, who came into the day on the back of two impressive straight games victory continued from where he left off and dished out another dominating performance to beat Siu Hang Lam of Hong Kong to sail into the Round of 32.

For top seeded Joao Geraldo, it was a walk in the park as he defeated India's Arjun Ghosh 4-1 to qualify for the main draw.
Robinot Quentin of France beat Utkarsh Gupta of India 4-1 to advance into the final draw while Spaniard Robles Alvaro beat Sudhanshu Grover of India 4-0 to qualify. Samuel Walker of England and Azzuku Can of France also made it to the next round after registering wins over India's Jubin Kumar 4-1 and Subhajit Saha 4-0 respectively.
With 10 players have already qualified for the main draw, five more places will be up for grabs with the second placed paddlers from each group clashing for one more shot at a berth in the next round.

India's Manav Thakkar, who finished second in group one will go up against Asuka Sakai of Japan from group 10, in the preliminary round, while Ali Alkhadrawi of Saudi Arabia who finished second in group two will take on Abdel-Kader Salifou of group nine in second preliminary round match of the day.
In the Under-21 women's singles competition, Sreeja Akula of India qualified for the semifinals by beating the Taipei paddler Po-Hsuan Lin 3-2. She is India's lone representation in the last four and will look to seal a spot in the finals when she faces Minnie Soo Wai Yaam of Hong Kong later in the evening.

In the men's under-21 category, Japanese sensation Harimoto Tomokazu eased into the semifinals after he registered an easy 3-0 victory over India's Birdie Boro. The 14-year-old world junior champion will now go up against Siu Hang Lam in the semifinals.