Toyota, September 25, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Indian paddlers Manush Shah and Diya Chitale secured a bronze medal in the mixed doubles table tennis event at the Asian Games after losing 0-4 to two-time defending champions Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin in the semifinal at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium on Friday.
The Indian pair had reached the semifinals after defeating four-time world medallists and World No. 4 Wong Chun and Doo Ho 3-1 in the quarterfinals. However, they could not replicate that performance against the formidable Chinese duo.
Sun and Wang, the Olympic champions and two-time Asian Games winners popularly known as ‘Sha-Tou’, took control of the semifinal early.
Manush and Diya put up a fight in the opening game but went down 8-11. They were then outplayed in the second game, losing 5-11, before falling 0-5 behind in the third.
The Indian pair staged a comeback in the third game and pushed the Chinese duo, but Sun and Wang held on to win 11-8. They then closed out the semifinal with an 11-2 win in the fourth game.
Manush and Diya became only the second Indian mixed doubles pair to win a medal at the Asian Games, after Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra.
Earlier in the competition, the Indian men’s doubles pair of Harmeet Desai and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran lost 0-3 to Japan’s Sora Matsushima and Shunsuke Togami in the third round.
In women’s doubles, Yashaswini Ghorpade and Diya Chitale lost 0-3 to China’s Shuhan Fan and Yi Chen in the third round, while Sreeja Akula and Syndrela Das were beaten 0-3 by China’s Man Kuai and Manyu Wang.
Manav Thakkar lost 2-4 to North Korea’s Ryong Tae in the men’s singles second round, while Manush Shah and Manav also suffered a 1-3 defeat to Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto and Hiroto Shinozuka in the men’s doubles second round.
Yashaswini, however, advanced in the women’s singles after defeating Syria’s Hend Zaza 4-1 in the second round.
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