Table Tennis
WTT Feeder Istanbul: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran finishes runner-up
Manika Batra crashed out in women's singles semi-finals.
Sathiyan Gnanasekaran finished as runner-up at 2025 WTT Feeder Istanbul (Photo credit: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran/Instagram)
India's Sathiyan Gnanasekaran finished as the runner-up at the 2025 WTT Feeder in Istanbul on Monday.
Up against Vladimir Sidorenko in the men's singles final, Gnanasekaran went down 9-11, 8-11, 9-11 in straight games to settle for second place on the podium.
Gnanasekaran, who holds the record for being the highest ranked Indian men's singles paddler in history, was outplayed in just 23 minutes by the lower ranked Sidorenko.
The third seeded Gnanasekaran had not dropped a single game until the final, where he went down in straight games.
He had started his campaign in the second round with a 3-0 win over fellow Indian Divyansh Srivastava after receiving a first round bye.
Gnansekaran then Rares Sipos in the quarter-finals and qualifier Evgeny Tikhonov in the semi-finals to make his way into the title clash.
In women's singles, the second seeded Manika Batra suffered an exit in the semi-finals. She went down 6-11, 12-10, 7-11, 11-13 to a lower-ranked Sibel Altinkaya of Turkey.
In mixed doubles, the reigning Indian national champion pair of Aakash Pal and Poymantee Baisya went down 12-14, 8-11, 4-11 in straight games to Singapore's Pang Koen and Ser Lin Qian in the semi-finals.
