Indian men's team stuns world number 2 Germany in World TT Championships

World number 37 Sathiyan won two gruelling deciders, first against 36th ranked Duda Benedikt (11-13, 4-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-9) before edging out Germany's highest-ranked player Qiu (10-12, 7-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-9). In both the matches, Sathiyan staged a strong fightback after losing the first two games. "The match against Qiu was definitely much tougher.

He is a top-10 player. It was a high quality match as well," Sathiyan told PTI. India number 2 Harmeet Desai had lost the second singles to Qui 1-2 (7-11, 9-11, 13-11, 3-11) before Manav Thakkar helped his team go 2-1 up with a 3-1 (13-11, 6-11, 11-8, 12-10) win over higher-ranked Ricardo Walther.

The 17th-ranked India had beaten Uzbekistan in their opening group game on Saturday. They need to finish in the top two to advance to the pre-quarterfinals. In the women's draw, India recorded their first win of the group stage with a 3-0 result over Czech Republic.

The Manika Batra-led side had lost to Germany on Saturday. Manika defeated Hana Matelova 3-1 (11-6, 11-6, 8-11, 12-10 ) in the first singles before Akula Sreeja and Diya Chitale won their singles against Marketa Sevcikova and Katerina Tomanovska, 3-0 and 3-1 respectively. It was a close affair between Diya and Katerina before the Indian prevailed 11-13, 15-13, 12-10, 14-12.

Down two game points in the fourth game, Diya relied on her serve to make it 10-10 before winning a spectacular rally. Katerina made it 12-12 before the India got the couple of points she needed to complete a fine win.