Bahraini paddlers come up just short in qualification bids

TDT | Manama    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain’s men’s and women’s table tennis teams came up just short yesterday in their bids to advance past the preliminary round of their respective teams’ competitions at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.

Both squads lost their concluding games in Group E of their contests, with the men falling to Hong Kong 0-3 and the women bowing to Uzbekistan 0-3.

For the men, Sayed Murtadha opened their tie against Hong Kong losing to Kwan Kit Ho 0-3 (5-11, 6-11, 1-11).

Rashed Rashed was then able to get a game against Pak Nam Ng in a 1-3 (10- 12, 8-11, 11-9, 6-11) defeat; and then Salman Mohammed lost to Kwan To Yiu 0-3 (4-11, 6-11, 8-11).

The result put Bahrain in third place on the men’s preliminary round Group E standings behind Hong Kong and Iran, and ahead only of Mongolia.

In a revised competition format, only the top two teams move on to the round of 16, where four teams will get a bye based on their seeding.

On the distaff, Bahrain’s women kicked off their tie with Uzbekistan with Maryam Alaali suffering a narrow 1-3 (11-9, 5-11, 8-11, 5-11) loss to Rozalina Khadjieva.

Amruta Phadke then fell to Markhabo Magdieva 0-3 (4-11, 1-11, 2-11); and then Fatima Alaali lost to Asel Erkebaeva 0-3 (5-11, 9-11 6-11).

The result put the Bahrainis in third place on the Group E table for the women’s preliminaries, behind both Hong Kong and Uzbekistan, with only the top two going through to the next phase.

Tomorrow, table tennis’ mixed doubles competition gets underwa y, w h i l e the doubles and singles events for both the men and women beg i n f r o m Wednesday.