DOHA, QATAR
Goa has been a "lucky" destination for India’s Harmeet Desai and he is looking forward to this year’s WTT Star Contender Goa to bring out his best game to the table in the February event.
Ranked 71 on the ITTF computer, Harmeet, who is in Qatar for two back-to-back events starting with the Asian WTTC Continental Stage, finished in 29th place and has not got the quota for the World Table Tennis Championship in South Africa but is hopeful he will make it to the May 2023 Durban event when the ITTF announce the qualification list next month on the basis of the rankings.
Harmeet defeated Singapore’s Pang Kuen 4-1 on Friday, the last day of the championship which saw two other Indian men’s singles players Sharath Kamal Achanta and Utalbhai Manush Shah getting the quota, while Harmeet along with Sathiyan Gnanasekaran are hopeful of making the grade based on the rankings to complete the maximum four berths a country can get for the World Championship.
Harmeet had a mixed bag in Qatar. He started by winning 4-0 against Abdulla Al Balosshi in the round of 62, lost 4-0 to Zhen Dong Fan in the round 32 match, forcing him to play in the position matches, in which he lost to Hang Siu Lam of Hong Kong but recovered to beat Izacc Quek of Singapore and winded up by beating Pang.
The 29-year-old Surat-born paddler has a host of local, regional and international events in the next few months and one of them will take place at his "lucky" destination Goa and he along with his teammates are looking forward to playing in the coastal paradise in two months’ time. “I have played a couple of tournaments in Goa before and it's quite a long time, I think around eight years ago I played the last tournament and there was also an International Tournament back then but it has been a very nice place to explore and also to play a tournament,” said Harmeet about the WTT Star Contender Goa which will take place from February 27 to March 5. “I'm looking forward to it and it has been a lucky place for me because I won the Lusofonia Games in Goa, so I'm hoping that I can also play well again,” he added.
