The Indian pair of G. Sathiyan and Ankita defeated Soumyajit Ghosh and Mouma Das 11-7, 8-11, 15-13, 11-7 to win their first Gold in the Avadh 20th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships here today.
Ghosh and Mouma had to settle for silver at the Pandit Dindayal Upadhayay Indoor Stadium, while the bronze went to another Indian pair of Sanil Shetty and Manika Batra.
With these three medals in pocket, along with the teams' goad (men) and silver (women), India overhauled their highest medal tally -- they won 16 medals, which was seven more than their count in the last edition in New Delhi.
It was a clean sweep of medals for the Indian men's pairs, thanks to a fine performance by Sudhanshu Grover and Abhishek Yadav, who outsmarted the No.2 seed duo of Singapore's Panx Xue Ji and Chen Feng in the fourth quarterfinal.
Grover and Yadav beat their rivals 11-6, 10-12, 7-11, 11-9, 11-8 to earn a semifinal meeting with Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet Desai who got a walkover from the Scottish pair of Rumgay Gavin and Craig Howieson, who had to return home last night.
The other semifinal will feature Anthony Amalraj and Sanil Shetty, who accounted for Cyprus' Marios Yiangou and Hristo Hristonov 11-2, 11-5, 11-4, G. Sathiyan and Devesh Karia, the two benefitting from the walkover of top-seeded Singapore duo of Li Hu and Chew Zhe Yu Clarence. Earlier in the day, Li Hu had pulled out citing side strain and fever.
