Bangladesh beat Nepal in Asian TT C'ships

Bangladesh men's table tennis team took sweet revenge to beat their Nepalese counterparts 3-1 on Sunday in the 28th ITTF- ATTU Asian Table Tennis Team Championships being held in Bhubaneswar, India.

Bangladesh, who suffered a 2-3 defeat to Nepal in July's South Asian Regional Championship, saw national champion Mohutasin Ahmed Ridoy play key roles behind the triumph, as he first beat Rubin Maharjan 3-1 before beating Sanyog Kapali 3-2 in the fourth game to make sure of Bangladesh's revenge over Nepal, following Javed Ahmed's 1-3 defeat to Kapali and Mufradul Hamza's 3-0 win over Rajeev Chikanbanjar.

Bangladesh, however, had a target to beat Qatar in the group stage, which also included Thailand, but the paddlers suffered a straight 0-3 defeat to Qatar after going down 3-0 to Thailand yesterday.

"We came here in India with a target to beat Qatar and Nepal and achieved one of the targets, because Qatar went far from us on the back of the improved training in China," Ridoy told The Daily Star over the phone from India.

"However, we were optimistic to beat Nepal this time because we had a good preparation at home under Thailand's coach Pattaratorn Passara, while the players also practiced hard during the training," Ridoy said.

"This experience will help us in November's Islamic Solidarity Games, because our target is to win a medal by surpassing our previous best of playing the quarterfinals of the last edition."

Although Bangladesh men's table tennis team notched a victory, Bangladesh women's table tennis team suffered defeats in all three games, going down 3-0 to Chinese Taipei and Uzbekistan, and 3-2 to Macau, China.

"Our women's team played really well against Uzbekistan and Macau, China, as all girls had to suffer defeats to their Uzbekistan counterparts in the decisive fifth games, while they went down to Macau despite taking a 2-1 lead," said Ridoy. Bangladesh men's team will now play the place-deciding knockout matches, while Bangladesh women's team will also play against Kyrgyzstan in the 19th-20th deciding match.