Popular names and top Indian women players from the national team failed to put it past their more fancied foreign opponents in the Womens’ singles at WTT Star Contender Chennai 2025 as Mannika Batra and Ahikya Mukherjee bowed out, fighting.

In matches that were more intense and competitive than the scoreline indicated, both Mannika and Ahikya fell to their Asian rivals and failed to advance into the tournament.

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In round 32 only, Mannika ran into Huang Yu-Jie from Chinese Taipei on the opening day of Women’s singles draw and lost to her in a shocking upset. Indian paddler, a very popular and focused Mannika seeded 9th in the tournament, suffered an upset defeat at the hands of a person ranked 239 in the world. Her opponent was aggressive from the word go and did not allow her to settle down.

Her team mate in the Indian contingent, Ahikya Mukherjee, also had a bad day in office on Friday when she lost in three straight games to her Korean opponent Joo Cheonhui. Another Indian women paddler, Divyanshi Bhowmick, lost to fourth seeded Shin You-bin also from Korea, but had the consultation of taking a game off her.

In the Women’s doubles too, the Indian contingent could not get past their opponents. Indian pair comprising National champion Diya Chitale and Yashaswini Ghorpade lost to the Japanese pair Miwa Harimoto and Miyuu Kihara in straight 0-3 loss.

Likewise, another high-profile Indian pair, Sreejka Akula and Swastika Ghosh, lost to the Japanese pair of Satsuki Odo and Sakura Yokoi, also in straight games, though the scoreline hides the intense struggle for each point in two of the three games that could have gone either way.