CWG: Sharath in TT men's singles semis; Harmeet ousted

Gold Coast (Australia), April 13 (IANS) India's Achanta Sharath Kamal stormed into the semi-finals of men's singles table tennis competition at the Commonwealth Games, beating England's Liam Pitchford here on Friday.

However, it was curtains for Harmeet Desai, who lost his quarter-final match to Nigerian Quadri Aruna 0-4 (9-11, 8-11, 9-11, 8-11) at the Oxenford Studios here.

In the second quarter-final, Sharath bounced back from a game down to prevail 4-2 (9-11, 13-11, 10-12, 11-9, 11-7, 11-9) over the Englishman.

After going down in the opening game, Sharath bounced back hard in the second which too went down to the wire.

In the third game, the Indian put up a spirite fight but somehow failed to get over the line but managed to get his focus back in the next three games to pocket the match and make his way to the last four.

In the semi-finals on Saturday, Sharath will be up against Nigerian Quadri Aruna.

The other Indian in the fray is Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, who will take on England's Samuel Walker in another quarter-final match, later on Friday.