Sharath in round two

Achantha Sharath Kamal advanced to the second round of men’s singles while all his Indian team-mates bowed out of their respective individual events at the World Table Tennis Championships in Paris on Wednesday.

Kamal registered a 11-7, 11-5, 8-11, 11-8, 5-11, 11-9 win over Spain’s Carlos Machado in his first singles encounter and will now take on World No 5 Timo Boll of Germany in the second round.

Anthony Amalraj and Soumyajit Ghosh lost their opening round matches of the main draw to end their individual campaign.

While Amalraj was beaten by Koki Niwa of Japan 5-11, 4-11, 8-11, 7-11, Soumyajit was thrashed by Long Ma of China 11-8, 11-4, 11-3, 11-9 win.

Indian challenge ended in the women singles event too after all the qualifiers -- Mouma Das, K Shamini and Madhurika Patkar -- lost their respective opening matches of the main draw.

Shamini was beaten by Italy’s Nikoleta Stefanova 4-11, 5-11, 7-11, 9-11. Patkar lost to Wing Nam Ng of Hong Kong 8-11, 4-11, 8-11, 12-10, 3-11 while Mouma Das went down 11-7, 5-11, 5-11, 6-11, 5-11 to Hong Kong’s Ho Ching Lee.

In the mixed doubles competition, Ghosh and Das accounted for Russia’s Alexander Shibaev and Elena Troshneva 16-14, 11-9, 11-8, 8-11, 11-8 to seal a spot in the last-32 stage. They will now take on the formidable pair of Peng Tang and Wing Nam Ng of Hong Kong on Thursday.

In the other second round mixed doubles match, Kamal and Shamini were routed 0-4 by the German pair of Patrick Franziska and Petrissa Solja.