Indian squad for Asian Youth Table Tennis announced

New Delhi: A 14-member Indian table tennis squad was on Tuesday selected to represent the country in the 27th Asian Youth Table Tennis Championships, which will be held in Doha from July 17 to 22.

The team comprises seven boys and seven girls.

The selectors picked the Under-19 and Under-15 squads in the boys and girls sections based on their rankings. Three coaches and two support staff will accompany the team members and will leave for Qatar in the wee hours of July 16.

The Doha championships are a qualification event for the 2023 ITTF World Youth Championships at Nova Garcia, Slovenia, which are slated from November 23 to December 3.

Though the winners of the continental event in U-19 and U-15 boys and girls directly make the grade for the Slovenia championships, the Indians can hope to grab one of the six spots each in the two sections, in singles out of the 20 spots and doubles on combined world ranking points.

The Indian players had qualified for the Tunisia edition, which featured singles, doubles and team events, last year.

The Indian U-19 boys finished with a bronze medal in the last edition of the Asian Juniors in Laos to qualify for the Doha championships, and the girls topped at the regional Youth championships, a qualification event for Doha held at Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh, in May.

Squad: Boys: Ankur Bhattacharjee, Divyan Srivastava, Jash Modi, P.B. Abhinand, Sarth Mishra, Punit Biswas and Priyanuj Bhattacharyya.

Girls: Yashaswini Ghorpade, Suhana Saini, Jennifer Varghese, Taneesha Kotecha, Avisha Karmakar, Sayanika Maji and Sayali Wani.

Coaches: Anindita Chakraborty, Jay Modak and R. Rajesh.

Support staff: Himanshu and Amandeep.