ITTF World C'ships: Manika, Manav, Diya exit as India's singles campaign ends in R64

Manika Batra, Manav Thakkar, and Diya Chitale all crashed out of Round of 64 as India's campaign in singles at the 2025 ITTF World Championships in Doha came to an abrupt end on Tuesday.

Despite the loss, Thakkar was the most impressive of Indians on display as he put up a commendable fight against the fourth seeded Tomokazu Harimoto of Japan.

Thakkar fought valiantly in the first game, before conceding it 11-13. Though he was blown away 3-11 in the second, he fought back to win the third 11-9.

Harimoto once again hit back to win the fourth 11-6 before Thakkar returned the favour, winning the fifth game 11-9 to stay in the contest.

Pushed into a must win situation to stay alive in the match, Thakkar lost 3-11 in the sixth game to concede the match 2-4 after a hard fought battle.

Meanwhile, Batra surrendered tamely to 17-year-old Park Gahyeon of South Korea.

The Khel Ratna Awardee looked far from her best as she went down in straight games to the lower ranked Park.

Batra, who had recently hit a three-year low in women's singles world rankings, went down 8-11, 7-11, 5-11, 8-11 to crash out of the tournament.

Later in the day, Chitale managed to take a game off the tenth seeded Cheng I-Ching but never posed any serious threat to the Chinese Taipei paddler.

Chitale, the reining women's singles national champion, lost out 3-11, 7-11, 6-11, 11-6, 5-11.

However unlike Batra and Thakkar, this is not the end of the road for Chitale.

The 22-year-old Chitale had advanced to the women's doubles Round of 16 along with Yashashwini Ghorpade on Monday.

Chitale and Ghorpade are the final two Indians standing in what has been a forgettable outing for the country at the 2025 ITTF World Championships.