Payas, Suhana to return home with bronze

Vila Nova de Gaia (Portugal): India's Payas Jain and Suhana Saini signed off with bronze medals after losing their respective semifinal matches at the World Youth table tennis championships here on Wednesday. While Payas lost his semifinal match to Chinese Peng Xiang, Suhana too went down fighting against top-seeded Egyptian Hana Goda in the last four earlier in the day.

Payas, seeded fourth, had defeated Iran's Naved Shams 11-9, 11-8, 11-8, 8-11, 11-4 on Tuesday night to earn a semi-final showdown against Peng Xiang, the winner of the title in 2019 and also assure himself of at least a bronze.

However, the world No. 3 Payas could not reproduce his form in the semi-finals and lost to the Chinese 1-4 (4-11, 12-10, 4-11, 2-11, 1-11) in less than 30 minutes. The reigning world champion, who executes the forehand and backhand shots with equal felicity, was on song against the Indian, who failed to come to terms with his opponent's onslaughts.

Except perhaps in the second game where Payas managed to seize the moment to win the game on extended points, Peng was all over with his attacking shots. The last two games exemplified the complete control that the Chinese had. It only added to the pressure on Payas and he could not come out of the cocoon built around him by the Chinese onslaught.

The quarterfinal clash was yet another battle between Payas and Naved, who have met each other before on half a dozen occasions.

With Tuesday's win, Payas has equalled the win-loss records. Payas was right on the money against the Iranian, breezing through to a 3-0 lead in the quarterfinals. However, Naved came back strong in the next to pull one down. Yet, Payas was up to the task in the fifth and completed it to romp home.

In the pre-quarterfinals, Payas faced a tough challenge from Nicholas Lum of Australia. But he put the 0-2 deficit behind him to win the match 7-11, 4-11, 11-4, 11-6, 11-8, 14-2.