Sathiyan-Harmeet wins doubles title at WTT Contender Tunis

India's Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai have won the men's doubles title in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender Tunis 2021, beating France's Emmanuel Lebesson and Alexandre Cassin 3-1 (11-9, 4-11, 11-9, 11-5) in the final played at Tunis, Tunisia on Saturday.
Sathiyan and Harmeet, who were part of the gold medal-winning Indian men's team at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, paired up for this event and played up superbly as they did not give their French rivals, who recently played together at the Tokyo Olympics, many chances.

After winning the close first game, the Indian pair lost the second easily but then came back strongly to win the next two games to clinch the title 3-1.

Sathiyan and Harmeet started aggressively, dominating the early exchanges as they won the first game 11-9. They, however, committed a few errors that allowed the French pair to dominate the second game and win it easily.

The third game was another close affair and the Indians capitalised on the chances given by their opponents, who struggled with the angles, to take a 2-1 lead.

Having gained ascendancy, Sathiyan and Harmeet took an early 5-1 lead in the fourth game and went on to wrap it up at 11-5 to win the title.

This is Sathiyan's second title in the WTT Contender 2021 series having won the mixed doubles crown at the at Budapest with Manika Batra in August - IANS