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Indian table tennis legend Achanta Sharath Kamal is set for his swansong in front of his home crowd as the World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender 2025 is set to kickstart in Chennai at Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium on Tuesday.
Kamal, a five-time Olympian, had earlier announced his retirement from the sport after the WTT Star Contender. He is the current Commonwealth Games singles champion and country's flag bearer for India's Paris 2024 Olympics contingent. The tournament will witness men's and women's singles main draw in a 48-player field, while all doubles events (in men's, women's and mixed) will be having 16 pairs, as per Olympics.com. Sharath Kamal will be participating in both men's singles and doubles competitions, with Snehit Suravajjula. India will be fielding a record 19 players in the main draw, including several national champions and Olympians. The national champions Manush Shah and Diya Chitale, were given wildcard entries last week. The ones who received direct entries in the women's singles main draw include Olympians Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Ayhika Mukherjee and Yashaswini Ghorpade. In the men's singles competition, the players who made it to the main draw based on rankings included Sharath Kamal, Manav Thakkar, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai The qualifying rounds will be played from March 25-26, while main draw matches will be played from March 27-30. There are several international stars who will make Sharath Kamal's farewell tournament a global one. Top international stars like Japan's Tomokazu Harimoto (men's singles world No. 3) and Hina Hayata (women's singles world No. 5) are the main headliners of the singles draw. Chennai will be the second Indian city to host a major World Table Tennis after Goa, which conducted WTT Star Contenders events for pthe ast two years. (ANI)
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