According to a press release by Ultimate Table Tennis, star paddlers Achanta Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Manika Batra kick started their WTT Star Contender Doha campaign in high spirits and cruised into the second round of their singles categories on Monday.

Sharath Kamal, the Melbourne Commonwealth Games champion struggled in the beginning stages of the match as he went down in the first game against Brian Afanador. The World No. 32 however bounced back impressively to set the tone and didn't give any further chance to his counterpart and sealed the match 8-11, 11-8, 11-7, 11-1 against the Puerto Rican during the men’s singles first round. The Indian paddler will now take on the World No. 16 Patrick Franziska from Germany in the next round on Tuesday.

World No. 37 Sathiyan was also down to 0-2 in the match before making a brilliant comeback with a stunning counter attacking show and sealed a 9-11, 7-11, 11-7, 11-4, 11-4 win against his French opponent Emmanuael Lebesson in the first round of men’s singles competition. Sathiyan will now have a tough job in the next round as he will be up against World No. 5 Japanese paddler Tomokazu Harimoto.

Commonwealth Games gold medallist Batra made a clinical straight-set 11-5, 11-9, 11-9 victory against China's Taipei’s Hsein-Tzu Cheng during the women’s singles opening round match and advanced into the next round where she will face World No. 3 Mima Ito of Japan.

Sathiyan, Sharath Kamal and Batra have won direct entries into the singles competition in the current tournament. The second round matches will be held on Tuesday.

Earlier in the first qualifying round of men’s singles, Anthony Amalraj faced a 6-11, 11-9, 3-11, 7-11 loss against Japan's Mizuki Oikawa whereas Harmeet Desai suffered a loss to Ukraine’s Yevhen Pryshchepa – 10-12, 9-11, 11-13, 9-11.

In the women’s singles qualifiers, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ahyika Mukherjee didn't qualify for the third round. Sutirtha lost a hard-fought 11-9, 11-6, 5-11, 9-11, 9-11 battle to Korea's Hayeong Kim while Ayhika had to see a 5-11, 11-13, 7-11 defeat against Romania's Irina Ciobanu.