Asian Games: Women's TT team beat Thailand to set QF with North Korea; Chetan loses bronze in karate 84kg kumite

Nagoya, Sep 22 : India women's table tennis entered the quarterfinals after a hard-fought win over Thailand at the ongoing Asian Games 2026 on Tuesday.

The Indian team fought back from 2-1 down to beat Thailand 3-2 and reach the quarter-finals, where they will face North Korea.

Yashaswini Ghorpade kept India in the contest with two wins, while Sreeja Akula sealed the tie with a 3-1 (9-11, 11-6, 12-10, 11-8) victory over Olympian and Asian Games medallist Suthasini Sawettabut.

India have so far won three Asian Games table tennis medals, all bronze. The breakthrough came at Jakarta 2018, where the Indian men’s team won the country’s first-ever table tennis medal at the Asian Games. Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra subsequently added another bronze in mixed doubles.

At Hangzhou 2023, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee won bronze in the women’s doubles, India’s first Asian Games medal in the event.

Earleir, India's karate player Chetan Bhatt missed out on a podium finish in the men’s 84kg kumite after losing to Chinese Taipei’s Chung Meng-yu by Senshu in the bronze-medal bout on Tuesday.

In the bronze medal clash, Chetan fought Chinese Taipei's Meng-yu Chu. The scores were level at 1-1 and Meng-yu was declared the winner via senshu.

Bhatt had earlier lost his semi-final 8-0 to Jordan’s Mohammad Alja'Fari.

Meanwhile, India’s quartet of Rohit Benediction, Danush Suresh, Rishabh Das and Akash Mani clocked 3:40.41s to finish seventh among 16 countries in the heats and qualify for the men’s 4x100m medley relay final, scheduled for later in the day.

In soft tennis, Aadhya Tiwari loses women’s singles opener to Thailand’s Alisha Ziegler 4-1 (1-4, 4-0, 4-0, 4-2, 6-4) in Group D. She will need to win her next match against Pakistan’s Kainaat Shallwani to stand a chance of progressing.

Meanwhile, Jay Meena defeated Pakistan’s Hussain Arain 4-0 (4-2, 4-0, 4-2, 4-0) in his only soft tennis men’s singles match in Group D to progress to the knockouts.

In sepaktakraw, India is all but eliminated in the men's team Regu after losing their second Group B match against Malaysia by 0-2 (15-9, 15-12). They will play against the Philippines in their last group game on Wednesday.

So far, India have won six medals - four silvers and two bronze - at the Asian Games 2026.