DELHI: India’s young table tennis players completed their winning spree in the Bahrain Junior and Cadet Open on a high note, adding eight more medals to their kitty, including two gold, three silver and three bronze medals, late on Monday night in Manama, Bahrain.
The medal rush for India started off with World No. 4 in the U-15 bracket, Payas Jain, steamrolling past his opponents to clinch the Cadet Boys’ Individual category crown. In the finals, he tamed Simon Belik of Czech Republic 3-1 to bag the gold medal.
In the Cadet Girls’ category, five young Indian paddlers paved their way into the quarterfinals, but only two of them eventually made it to the last four stage.
Anargya Manjunath and Yashaswini Ghorpade then registered 3-0 wins over Malamatenia Papadimitriou of Greece and Hana Goda of Egypt, to make the final clash an all-Indian affair. Anargya beat Yashaswini 3-1 to clinch the gold. Suhana Saini and Swastika Ghosh fought valiantly in the Mini-Cadet Girls’ and Junior Girls’ category.