Sharath, Sreeja clinch gold medal in table tennis mixed doubles at CWG 2022

Sharath Kamal and Akula Sreeja overcame giant-killer Malaysian pair of Javen Choong and Karen Lyne in the final to win India’s maiden mixed doubles gold medal at Commonwealth Games

August 08, 2022 02:57 am | Updated 04:16 pm IST

India’s Achanta Sharath Kamal and Akula Sreeja with their gold medals during Mixed Doubles Table Tennis medal ceremony, at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham, UK

India’s Achanta Sharath Kamal and Akula Sreeja with their gold medals during Mixed Doubles Table Tennis medal ceremony, at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham, UK | Photo Credit: PTI

A. Sharath Kamal and Sreeja Akula gave India its first-ever Commonwealth Games mixed doubles gold medal and the second table tennis gold in Birmingham by overcoming the giant-killer Malaysian pair of Javen Choong and Karen Lyne in Birmingham on Sunday night.

Sharath and Sreeja kept their scintillating run alive in the tournament to overcome Choong and Lyne — who had earlier ousted pre-tournament favourites G. Sathiyan and Manika Batra — 11-4, 9-11, 11-5, 11-6 in the best-of-five-games final.

Here is the latest Commonwealth Games 2022 Medal Table: Top teams in Birmingham.

India’s men’s team — led by Sharath — had earlier won the team championship gold.

The victory meant Sharath — who had earlier made it to the men’s singles final despite settling for silver in the men’s doubles category along with Sathiyan — remained on course for a treble-gold medal run.

For Sreeja — the star of India’s women paddlers this week — it was a deserving medal, that too on top of the podium, to sign off a memorable week. Having lost the singles bronze medal playoff, Sreeja overcame the disappointment and starred in the last encounter of the day with her powerful forehand winners.

Sharath lets Sreeja take centre stage

Sharath, having played two matches earlier in the day, was happy to let Sreeja take centre stage and chipped in consistently against a relatively inexperienced pairing.

Earlier in the evening, while Sharath ousted England’s Paul Drinkhall in six hard-fought games in the men’s singles semifinal, Sathiyan stumbled against England No. 1 Liam Pitchford.

Pitchford proved to be too aggressive and quick for Sathiyan, who was found wanting on multiple fronts in the semifinal. While Sharath will face Pitchford in Monday’s final, Sathiyan will hope to earn his maiden CWG medal by defeating Drinkhall in the bronze medal playoff.

Here is the full list of Indian medal winners at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022.

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