Paddler Manav Thakkar books Youth Olympics berth; Archana Girish Kamath's wait gets prolonged

Bangkok: Indian paddler Manav Thakkar booked his ticket to the Buenos Aires Youth Olympics by defeating Singapore’s Shao Josh Chua 4-0 in Bangkok on Tuesday. The Indian, ranked World No 2 beat Shao 11-4, 11-7, 11-2, 11-9 in the final of the Road To Buenos Aires 2018 YOG Series (Asia). [caption id=“attachment_4461525” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of Manav Thakkar. Twitter/@UltTableTennis[/caption] However, Archana Girish Kamath missed the bus for third time when she bowed out in the quarter-finals to Hungarian Fanni Harasztovich 3-4, said a Table Tennis Federation of India media release. The top-seeded Thakkar accounted for Jacobo Vahnish of Panama 4-0 in the quarter-finals after his first-round bye and went on to defeat Jordan’s Khaled Khader, also with the same margin, to enter the final. With two easy wins to bank on, the Surat boy exploded when he took on the Singaporean and except for the second game, in which he allowed the liberty of a few extra points to his opponent, the Indian played to a plan to book his Youth Olympics berth. “A big monkey off my back. I had missed the bus on two earlier occasions but was determined to finish it off here,” Thakkar said. He did admit with coach Massimo Costantini at hand to advice, things became rather easy. “The coach had flown in just this morning from Halmstad (Sweden) after the world championships to guide me,” said Thakkar. Costantini said he was confident that Kamath, too, will qualify in one of the two remaining Road To Buenos Aires Series, including the one in Canada next month. Kamath had every chance to progress in the quarter-finals when she comfortably led 3-2 and 10-8 in the sixth game. However, Harasztovich got the better of the Indian, beating her 13-11, 8-11, 7-11, 6-11, 11-7, 12-10, 11-5.