Asian-Olympic Sharath, Manika enter the mixed doubles final at Asian Olympic Qualifiers
New Delhi/UNI: A day after sealing their places in the singles at the Tokyo Olympics, the Indian pair of Achanta Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra made their way into the mixed doubles final at the Asian Olympic Qualifiers, post-win against Singapore’s Koen Pang Yew En and Lin Ye 4-2 in the last-4 clash in Doha.
The Indian pair ranked world number 19 is up against the world number 8 Korean pair of Sang-Su Lee and Jihee Jeon on Saturday while sitting a win away from qualifying for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Having already secured the singles berths on Thursday and now aiming for double qualification, Sharath and Manika faced a tough challenge in the initial part of the match as the scores were levelled at 2-2 after the fourth game, still the 2018 Asian Games bronze medalist pair managed to hold an edge over the opponent and bagged two successive games to complete a 12-10, 9-11, 11-5, 5-11, 11-8, 13-11 victory in 50 minutes.
Meanwhile, the Korean duo Lee and Jeon entered the final with 4-11, 11-7, 11-4, 5-11, 11-8, 11-8 win against Thailand’s Padasak Tanviriyavechakul and Suthasini Sawettabut.
Earlier on Thursday, all the four Indian paddlers Sharath, Manika, Gnanasekaran Sathiyan, and Sutirtha Mukherjee earned themselves singles qualification at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, while Sathiyan and Sutirtha emerged winners in their respective categories of the South Asian Group, Sharath and Manika sealed the Tokyo berths.
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