New Delhi: The Indian women paddlers could not have asked for a better showing than they displayed against the top-seeded Japanese in the main draw of the 2021 ITTF-ATTU Asian Championships at Doha on Wednesday night.

The 1-3 result may not have been to the liking of the Indians. Yet, what emerged at the end of the quarterfinal was the fighting qualities of the Indians. The three Indians—Suthirtha Mukherjee, Archana Kamath and Sreeja Akula—had driven the point home beyond any doubt of the Japanese who, despite their superiority, would have enjoyed and raved about the contests.

Japan’s Hitomi Sato, who allowed some liberty to Sreeja in the first game, tamed Sreeja 11-5, 11-3, 11-3. The world No. 19 Japanese had set the tone for her teammates to follow. However, Archana’s resistance against Saki Shibata must have come as a surprise in the second match.

The Bengaluru girl took two games on extended points against the player, who is ranked 42, besides running her close in the fifth. Saki huffed and puffed her way to put Japan 2-0 ahead. Nevertheless, Sutirtha arrested the urge with a 3-2 (11-7, 11-8, 5-11, 7-11, 11-8) win over Miyu Nagasaki, giving a scare to the Japanese. In the end, Saki settled the issue in her reverse singles against Sreeja, but not before finding the Hyderabadi putting up some very early resistance. Saki won 8-11, 10-12, 11-2, 11-9, 11-8.

The women blanked out Uzbekistan 3-0 in the second stage of the qualifiers while accounting for Nepal and Jordan for similar scorelines in the first stage.

The men’s team beat Iran 3-1 in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. They will now take on South Korea in the semi-final on Friday.