Panaji

Star women paddler Manika Batra led the Indian performance with three wins across formats as main draw engagements in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender Goa, got underway here at the Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium.

Manika, presently world no. 34, first won her women's singles Round of 64 match and then successively partnered Archana Kamath and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, to reach the quarterfinals of the women's and mixed doubles respectively, in her first appearance at a home WTT tournament.

Sutirtha Mukherjee was the other Indian to win all her matches on the day, emerging triumphant in the women's singles and doubles respectively.

However, in what will be heartbreak for home fans, Indian legend Achanta Sharath Kamal bowed out of the tournament after going down in both his singles and doubles matches.

In the morning session, Sharath and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran lost their men's doubles Round of 16 match to Koreans Jae-hyun An and Seung-min Cho 3-1 (11-6, 11-7, 7-11, 11-8). Then in the final match of the day, rising Kazakh star Kirill Gerassimenko defeated the reigning Commonwealth Games champion in straight games 3-0 (11-8, 11-7, 11-8) to break Indian hearts.

"I am really happy that this tournament WTT Star Contender is happening for the first time in India. The home crowd is here, and I am really happy that people will come to cheer me and cheer all the Indian players. Today I won my singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Mixed doubles were really tough as we have lost against them twice before. But this time we won, and I am really happy with that win. Let's see what happens in this tournament. I'll give my 100% and my best for my country and for myself," said Manika on Wednesday.

 "Fantastic win. I think by far I would rate this as one of the best-ever mixed doubles win. They are a very solid pair, technically they are very strong and they have been winning back-to-back tournaments in WTT events. So, to beat such a strong Korean pair is definitely one of the best ever wins for us." said Sathyan Gnanasekaran post their Mixed Double win.

Sutirtha too put it across compatriot Suhana Saini 11-7,11-7,8-11, before winning her opening doubles match with Ayhika Mukherjee. The Indian pair pulled off a creditable 3-0 (11-9, 11-6, 11-5) victory over the Egyptian-Polish pair of Natalia Bajor and Yousra Helmy to make the last eight. They now play the crack Swedish pair of Linda Bergstrom and Christina Karllberg, who were comfortable 3-0 winners against India's Poymantee Baisya and Anannya Basak.

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In the men's singles, Sathiyan took out a fighting Harmeet Desai in four games in a match pregnant with Indian interests. He won the first easily at 11-4, but Harmeet came back to win the second 10-12 and then the third also went more than the distance as Sathiyan took it 13-11, before closing out the fourth at 11-9.