In Table Tennis, Indian paddlers Manush Shah and Diya Chitale created history by becoming the first Indian mixed doubles pair to reach the semifinals of a WTT Grand Smash after beating Romania’s Eduard Ionescu and Bernadette Szocs 3-0 at the China Smash in Beijing yesterday.
The fifth-seeded Indian duo won the quarterfinal 11-9, 13-11, 11-3 to secure a place in the last four.
However, Manav Thakkar exited the men’s singles in the round of 32 after losing 0-3 to seventh seed Alexis Lebrun of France.
In women’s doubles, Diya Chitale and Yashaswini Ghorpade suffered a narrow 2-3 defeat to China’s Gao Yuxin and Xiang Junlin in the round of 16.
