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Journalism of Courage
India swept the table tennis team events at the 21st Commonwealth Games after the men’s team clinched gold with an emphatic win over Nigeria. The men’s side capped off their 3-0 win, a day after the women’s team stunned Singapore. This is the first time since table tennis was added into the Commonwealth Game’s programme that India have won in both categories. Both sides improved on their previous showing at the Glasgow Games in 2014 in which the men’s team won silver and the women’s team came home emptyhanded.
India’s road to the final wasn’t particularly easy depite a strong start in the group stages. They had to dig deep in their semifinal match against Singapore and come from behind to win 3-2. A stunning result which was repeated by the women’s team, but this time in the final.
In today’s final, there were moments in the match when Nigeria briefly threatened to take the momentum away from India, but the Indian paddlers maintained their composure to wrap up the tie. Despite losing the first game, India’s Sharath Achanta came back to level the match 1-1 and eventually win it 3-1. In the second match, India’s Sathiyan Gnannasekaran started strongly by racing ahead to 10-6. He, however, threw away the game by conceeding the next five points to Nigeria’s Segun Toriola. Sathiyuan came back strongly to take the next three games and win the match 3-1. In the third match, the Nigerian doubles pair were no match for India’s doubles pair of Harmeet Desai and Sathiyan Gnannasekaran. They breezed past them 3-0.
India so far has nine gold medals, four silver and five bronze. They stand third in the overall medal standing after reclaiming the third spot from Canada.
with PTI inputs
