New Delhi: G. Sathiyan, the top-ranked Indian in the world at No. 39, will spearhead our campaign in the ITTF-ATTU Asian Cup Tournament, beginning at the Hua Mak Indoor Stadium in Bangkok tomorrow.
He will be in the company of the other two Indians, A Sharath Kamal, ranked No. 44, and the lone woman competitor at No. 44, Manika Batra, in the US$ 200,000 prize money event.
The men’s and women’s singles event of the 33rd edition of the event, held in a direct knockout format for the first time, has the top 16 Asian players, including No. 1 seed Wang Chuqin and Lin Gaoyuan from China, seeded No. 3–the replacements for Fan Zhendong and Ma Long–and two strong Japanese contenders in No. 2 seed Tomokazu Harimoto and Yukiya Uda.
Of the two Indian male players, both Sathiyan and Sharath have a tough draw as Sathiyan will take on No. 26 Yukiya Uda from Japan in his first round, and Sharath will run into Chuang Chih-Yuan, ranked No. 16 in the world, from the Chinese Taipei. However, Manika will clash with Chinese Chen Xingtong, ranked world No. 7 and seeded No. 3.
For the records, both Sathiyan and Sharath achieved sixth positions, so far their best finish in the 2019 edition in Yokohama and the 2015 edition in Jaipur, respectively.
All the first-round matches are scheduled for tomorrow, followed by the quarterfinals beginning Friday and the semifinals and finals on Saturday.
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