Both the Indian women’s and men’s teams will make it to the Olympics for the first time by finishing in the bottom half of the world rankings, despite losing their pre-quarterfinal matches at the ITTF World Table Tennis Team Championships in Busan on Wednesday.
India will be making its Olympic team debut for the first time since the event was added to the Beijing 2008 Games. According to calculations, both teams have eliminated Paris, even though the official list of team rankings will be revealed on March 4.
The defeats harmed India’s prospects of earning team quotas from the competition for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. If they had made it to the final eight, they would have guaranteed spots in the Summer Games.
Ten-time national champion Sharath Kamal’s men’s team was destroyed 3-0 by the stronger hosts, Korea. Despite a valiant effort, the women were defeated 1-3 by Chinese Taipei, who were led by World No. 10 Cheng I-Ching and World No. 41 Szu-Yu Chen.
Manika Batra and Sreeja would have qualified among the women based on rankings, but the men would gain a great deal from this. World No. 67 Harmeet Desai, seasoned Sharath, Sathiyan, and Manav Thakkar will compete for the two spots, with the Table Tennis Federation of India potentially making the final decision. Sathiyan and Manika Batra ought to be able to advance to the mixed doubles competition.
