G Sathiyan, Harmeet Desai win men’s doubles title at WTT Contender Tunis
The Indian pair beat France’s Emmanuel Lebesson and Alexandre Cassin 3-1 in the final. This is G Sathiyan’s second WTT Contender title this year.
Indian pair Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai won the men’s doubles title at the WTT Contender Tunis 2021 in Turkey on Saturday.
G Sathiyan-Harmeet Desai beat French Olympians Emmanuel Lebesson and Alexandre Cassin 3-1 (11-9, 4-11, 11-9, 11-5) in the final.
This is Sathiyan Gnanasekaran’s second WTT Contender title in 2021, having won the mixed doubles event at the WTT Contender Budapest with Manika Batra back in August.
G Sathiyan and Harmeet Desai, who were part of the gold medal-winning men’s team at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, began brightly, dominating rapid exchanges to win the first game.
The Indian table tennis duo were outplayed in the second game, though, after being forced into errors with their returns, many of which went long.
The third game was closely fought. While Sathiyan-Harmeet continued to struggle with their returns, the French pair couldn’t get their angles right and allowed the Indians to take a 2-1 lead.
Sathiyan-Harmeet were quick off the blocks in the fourth game, taking an early 5-1 lead, as Harmeet Desai pulled off some fine soft shots to force Lebesson-Cassin on the backfoot.
However, the Frenchmen soon clawed back to 5-4 after a few returns from Sathiyan-Harmeet went wide.
The Indian pair gained back their momentum after a timeout and soon wrapped up the title.