India beat Pakistan 3-0 in Aichi-Nagoya to reach women's table tennis quarter-finals
India's women's table tennis team defeated Pakistan 3-0 in their second Group F tie at the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, on Monday, September 21, securing a place in the quarter-finals of the women's team event.
Sutirtha Mukherjee and Syndrela Das were included in the playing line-up in place of Diya Chitale and Yashaswini Ghorpade, while Sreeja Akula retained her spot after featuring in India's earlier matches. India had opened their campaign on Sunday with a 3-2 victory over Singapore, in which they trailed 1-2 before Sreeja and Yashaswini won the final two matches. The team selection for the Pakistan tie followed that narrow opening win. India has won six of the eight matches played in the last two matches.
Sutirtha Mukherjee began the tie with an 11-3, 11-3, 11-4 victory over Aleena Khan, conceding just 10 points in the match and facing few extended rallies. Her first two games were won by eight-point margins, the widest of the tie, setting the tone for India's performance in the fixture.
Seventeen-year-old Syndrela Das doubled India's lead by defeating Kalsoom Khan 11-6, 11-7, 11-5. Kalsoom scored 18 points in total, the highest individual tally by any Pakistani player in the tie.
Sreeja Akula sealed the tie with an 11-4, 11-4, 11-5 win over Fatima Khan. India recorded victories in every game by at least four points, and Pakistan's three players combined for 41 points across nine games, averaging 4.6 points per game.
Sreeja is 28 and a two-time national champion; she won mixed doubles gold with Sharath Kamal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and received the Arjuna Award in 2022. In June 2024 she became the first Indian to win a singles title at WTT Contender level in Lagos, and she reached the pre-quarterfinals at the Paris Olympics.
Sutirtha won the women's singles title at the 2018 Senior Nationals and was part of India's gold-medal team at the 2018 Commonwealth Games; at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou 2022 she won the women's doubles bronze with Ayhika Mukherjee. Syndrela, the youngest of the three, won her first national ranking title in the under-13 category in 2021, claimed U15, U17 and U19 titles in 2023, and in August won her first senior women's title along with the under-19 title at the National Ranking Championships in Kanpur.
The victory advances India into the quarter-finals of the women's team event at the Asian Games 2026.