India’s table tennis campaign ends as Sharath Kamal goes down fighting to China’s Ma Long

Tokyo: India’s table tennis campaign came to an end on Tuesday at the Tokyo Olympics as veteran Sharath Kamal lost to Olympic champion Ma Long of China in a hard-fought match.

In a match that swung like a pendulum, Sharath Kamal fell to his Chinese rival in five games in the third round of the men’s singles match, 11-7, 8-11, 13-11, 11-4, 11-4 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.

Sharath was the last remaining Indian player at the Olympics as Manika Batra and Sutirtha Mukherjee had already exited on Monday while Sathiyan Gnanasekaran bowed out two days back after losing their respective matches.

Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra also lost in the first round of the mixed doubles event.