PUNE: The Indian boys' junior team finished with a silver medal on Wednesday after losing 0-3 to China at the Asian junior and cadet table tennis championships in Ulaanbaatar. Only India's top ranked junior (Under-18) player, Gujarat's
Manush Shah
, managed to win a game on a day where the rest of his teammates blanked in front of the top-seeded Chinese outfit.
In the second rubber, Shah lost 1-3 to Xiang Pent, World No. 6, 7-11, 12-10, 5-11, 9-11 while Mumbai's
Raegan Albuquerque
and Ankuram Jain of Rajasthan failed to put up a fight against Xi Yingbin and Liu Yebo respectively.
However, the coach of the Indian junior and senior team
Brett Clarke
saw a silver lining in the boys' run. "We pick up a lot of positives from this. We lost to the best team in the tournament, which has one of the best players in the world. The boys played with tremendous confidence and character," said the Australian from Ulaanbaatar who took charge of the junior team three months ago.
On Thursday, after beating South Korea 3-2 in the semifinal, the boys' team qualified for the World Junior championships that will be held in Thailand in November.
Clark insists that this tournament has been the most emphatic one not just because of the qualification. "The qualification is definitely the silver lining. We won medals in Hong Kong and Thailand but those teams were not as strong as the one's we played here in the last two days. Beating Korea (seeded fifth)was a huge boost and an achievement but today things did not work out unfortunately," said Clarke.
"There will be more medals in the boys' individual events. I am confident after the way they have played in the tea event," he added.
The girls' team finished seventh after beating Iran 3-0 in the match for the position. Maharashtra girls Swastika Ghosh and Manushree Patil along with Prapti Sen registered easy wins over Melika Karami, , Kimia Rostami and Sheema Safaei respectively.