Chennai, Feb 12 (IANS) India’s top mixed doubles combination of Manush Shah and Diya Chitale, and youngster Ankur Bhattacharjee registered contrasting wins to advance in the WTT Star Contender Chennai 2026 at the Tamil Nadu Physical Education and Sports University in Chennai on Thursday.

Manush and Diya, who recently won the WTT Contender Muscat 2026, were pushed to the brink by the Korean qualifiers as they saved three match points before the home favourites emerged victorious 3-2 (10-12, 11-6, 12-10, 5-11, 12-10) in 42 minutes to reach the quarterfinals of the event co-hosted by Ultimate Table Tennis, Sharath Kamal Academy.

Later in the day, qualifier Ankur sent Frenchman Florian Bourrassaud packing with a 3-1 (11-5, 11-8, 3-11, 11-9) win. He will now face the 14th seed Kazuhiro Yoshimura of Japan in the second round.

Ankur also advanced to the mixed doubles quarterfinals alongside Swastika Ghosh after they defeated the Korean combination of Park Gyuhyeon and Kim Nayeong 3-2 (11-9, 3-11, 11-8, 6-11, 11-9). They will now face fourth seeds Harmeet Desai and Yashaswini Ghorpade, who defeated Darius Movileanu and Andrea Dragoman of Romania 3-0 (11-8, 11-4, 11-7).

In the other quarterfinals, Manush and Diya will face Indian wildcards Payas Jain and Syndrela Das, who defeated Kazakhstan’s Iskender Kharki and Sarvinoz Mirkadirova 11-8, 11-6, 11-7 in their first round clash.

Among the other results, Snehit Suravajjula fought back from a 1-2 deficit to beat Divyansh Srivastava 3-2 (9-11, 11-8, 6-11, 11-7, 11-6) to set up a second-round clash against Japanese 13th seed Mizuki Oikawa. Harmeet also advanced to the second round with a convincing 3-1 (11-8, 12-10, 9-11, 11-8) over Iulian Chirita of Romania.

In the women’s singles Round of 64 clash, the 15-year-old Divyanshi Bhowmick put up a good fight against WTT Feeder Series Vadodara 2026 winner Ryu Hanna of Korea but ended up on the wrong end of a 3-1 (6-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-5) scoreline.

Later in the day, Diya defeated wild card Anusha Kutumbale 3-0 (11-8, 12-10, 11-8) to advance to the second round.

–IANS

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