Marcos Freitas and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran powered Dabang Smashers TTC to a narrow 14-13 win over Falcons TTC on day four of Ultimate Table Tennis at Nehru Indoor Stadium on Sunday.
Freitas’ two victories in his men’s singles matches helped the Smashers keep the match alive up in the initial stages of the match, up to the fourth game. The Falcons, however, took a slender 8-7 lead at the of the women’s singles match. Lee Ho Ching narrowly defeated Tetyana Bilenko 2-1 to give a slight edge to the Falcons, but Gnanasekaran turned it around for the Smashers right away, in the seventh game.
Gnanasekaran defeated Par Gerell in the men’s singles match by the same scoreline, 2-1, to once again tie the scores at 9-all. In the seventh match, Kim Song I won her women’s singles match against Sutirtha Mukherjee 3-0 to widen the lead for the Smashers. A 2-1 win in the eighth match between Kou Lei and Arjun Ghosh propelled the Smashers to an unassailable 14-10 lead. At the end of the ninth match in which Falcons’ Yu Wang win 3-0 against Kim Song I, the final scores were determined, giving the Smashers their first win in the tournament.