Hyderabad's Snehit bags silver, bronze medals

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad-based paddler S Fidel R Snehit won silver in singles and bronze in men's doubles of the 2021 ITTF Kazakhstan International Open in Karaganda on Sunday.

Snehit, who is world no 405, defeated many better ranked players, including world no-136 Pavel Platonov of Bulgaria in semi-finals 4-1 (11-5, 11-3, 11-5, 6-11, 11-8) and world no-182 Ali Al Khadrawi of Saudi Arabia 4-2 in quarter finals, to storm into his first-ever finals in the men's singles category.

He lost to world no-46 Kiril Gerassimenko of Kazakhstan 1-4 (6-11, 9-11, 3-11, 11-9, 6-11) in the finals.

Snehit was equally impressive in men's doubles, but could not make it to the finals and had to settle for the bronze medal.

After winning the Jordan Open title in the junior's category in 2017, for the first time Snehit played the finals in the men's category.

A student of Somnath Ghosh MLR UTT Academy, Snehit is happy with his performance. "Winning two international medals in a tournament by beating better ranked players is something to cheer about. I could maintain consistency in this tournament.

I am sure that I can come up with good performances by making amendments in certain areas of the game. I thank my coach, Somnath Ghosh and physical fitness trainer Hirak Bagchi and the Academy founder Amarnath Reddy for their wonderful support."

Coach Somnath Ghosh, who is in Doha with another international player Akula Sreeja at an international tournament, said in a statement: "Congratulations snehit. What a performance! Your hard work has already started paying you back. You are making all of us proud. Great achievement. Hard luck for your final match. No problem, cheer up."

The Indian TT pairs of Siddhesh Pande and Mudit Dani, and Fidel R Snehit and Sudhanshu Grover ended their campaign with mens doubles bronze medals at the 2021 ITTF Kazakhstan International Open in Karaganda.

Both the pairs displayed a great show throughout the tournament before suffering defeats in their respective semifinals. Maharashtra duo Mudit and Siddhesh suffered a 0-3 loss against the Saudi Arabian pair of Ali Alkhadrawi and Abdulaziz Bu Shulaybi.

In the second men's doubles last-4 clash, Snehit and Sudhanshu too went down fighting 2-3 against tough Kazakh pair of Alan Kurmangaliyev and Kirill Gerassimenko.

The pair of Kaushani Nath and Prapti Sen too stormed into the women's doubles final as they outclassed the Uzbek duo of Kamila Khalikova and Mekhriniso Norkulova 3-1 in the last-4 match. They will now face Valeria Kotcyur and Valeria Shcherbatykh of Russia in the final.

(With inputs from agencies)