Manav Thakkar wins bronze in WTT Corpus Christi meet

Paddler Manav Thakkar bagged a bronze medal at the recently concluded WTT Feeder Corpus Christi 2024 table tennis tournament played in Texas, USA.

The world no. 88 Manav lost to world no. 141 Joao Monterio of Portugal 1-3 (11-8, 8-11, 11-13, 9-11) in the semifinal to take the third place and settle for a bronze medal.

Earlier, the 23-year-old overcame a two-game deficit to win a 3-2 (4-11, 7-11, 11-2, 11-4, 11-6) against the world no. 70 Marcos Madrid of Mexico in the round-of-32.

He then eased past world no. 92 Horacio Cifuentes of Argentina 11-5, 11-6, 11-9 in the pre-quarterfinal.

In the quarters too, the Surat paddler held off the challenge of Italian Niagol Stoyanov to triumph 11-1, 11-6, 7-11, 12-10 to book a place in the semis and assure himself a medal.

Meanwhile, Harmeet Desai defeated world no. 96 Vitor Ishiy of Brazil 3-2 in the round-of-32 and romped past Nikhil Kumar of USA 3-1 in the pre-quarters before losing 1-3 to world no. 47 Kirill Gerassimenko of Kazakhstan in the last-eight clash.

Guj U-19 boys team wins gold in School Games

: Gujarat U-19 boys team defeated Maharashtra 3-1 to pocket the gold medal in the U-19 boys’ team event at 67th School National Games 23-24 in Indore.

The Gujarat team, consisting of Armaan Shaikh, Harshvardhan Patel, Janmejay Patel, Dhyey Jani, Pavan Detroja and coached by Mahavir Kumpavat and Sagar Trivedi, crushed Chattisgarh 3-0 in the pre-quarterfinals before fighting hard to post a 3-2 victory over CISCE in the quarterfinals.

Gujarat boys had to dig deep during their semi-final encounter against the mighty Haryana before they sealed the final berth with a 3-2 win.