Paddler Manav Thakkar becomes first Indian to clinch ITTF Challenge Series U-21 men's singles title

Markham: Indian paddler Manav Thakkar on Sunday became the first Indian to clinch U-21 men’s singles title in an ITTF Challenge Series event with a comfortable win over Argentina’s Martin Bentancor on Sunday. [caption id=“attachment_4461525” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of Manav Thakkar. Twitter/@UltTableTennis[/caption] Thakkar beat his opponent 11-3, 11-5, 11-6 in the ITTF Challenge Plus Benemax-Virgo North American Open. It was India’s first U-21 men’s singles title since the ITTF Challenge Series became an entity in January 2017, as opposed to being an integral part of the ITTF World Tour, a release said. Thakkar now joined Harmeet Desai, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Soumyajit Ghosh in the list of Indians to win ITTF World Tour U-21 men’s singles titles. In 2012, Harmeet and Sathiyan won the title in Brazil and Egypt respectively while Soumyajit did the same in Chile in 2011. The 19-year-old Thakkar, who was a part of the Indian men’s team which won the bronze in 2018 Asian Games, dominated the proceedings in the one-sided final match. Second-seeded Thakkar maintained his dominance throughout the final as he hardly gave Bentancor any chance to score. Thakkar had beaten Argentina’s Horacio Cifuentes 11-5, 11-9, 11-5 and Lorenzo Santiago 11-7, 12-10, 7-11, 11-6 in the quarter-final and semi-final respectively.