Achanta Sharath Kamal-Gnanasekaran Sathiyan win silver at Hungarian Open, youngster Mathan Hansini wins bronze in Sweden

Budapest: Indian men’s doubles pair of Achanta Sharath Kamal and Gnanasekaran Sathiyan settled for a silver medal at the ITTF World Tour Hungarian Open after losing the summit clash to German combination of Benedikt Duda and Patrick Franziska. [caption id=“attachment_8077251” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Gnanasekaran Sathiyan and Sharath Kamal won silver medal at the Hungarian Open. Image: TTFI[/caption] The Indian pair, which defeated top seeds Ho Kwan Kit and Wong Chun Ting of Hong Kong 3-2 in the semi-finals, put up a strong effort in the summit clash but eventually went down fighting 5-11, 9-11, 11-8, 9-11 to the 16th seeds German pair in a 30-minute showdown on Saturday. It is Sharath Kamal’s second medal from the prestigious tournament. He also won a bronze with Manika Batra in mixed doubles. It turned out to be a super Saturday for India as Chennai’s Mathan Rajan Hansini bagged a bronze medal in the mini-cadet girls’ singles category at the Swedish Junior and Cadet Open in Orebro, Sweden. The 10-year-old Class V student started her main draw challenge after a couple of wins in the group stages before going down to Russia’s Iuliia Pugovkina 12-10, 9-11, 5-11, 8-11 in a gruelling semi-final match. In the main draw, she beat Russia’s Aleksandra Bokova 12-10, 9-11, 9-11, 3-11 in the round of 16 and notched up a commanding 11-3, 12-10, 11-9 win over Isha Bajpai of the USA in the quarter-finals. In the cadet girls’ singles section, another Indian talent, Suhana Saini reached the pre-quarterfinals, while Suresh Raj Preyesh too made it to the pre-quarters in cadet boys’ singles section.