Not among the top individual players in the national team in 2023, the young Indians did not have partners to dabble with in doubles. The beginning of the Manush Shah and Diya Chitale partnership was more out of chance. And so they thought of teaming up and giving mixed doubles a shot.
They began winning titles at the WTT Feeder level, which forms a springboard to the highest level on the WTT tour. And they sprang up alright, capturing the WTT Contender Tunis title the same year. More significantly, they defeated Japan’s top pair of Miwa Harimoto and Sora Matsushima in the final.
The young Indian combine, ranked 8th in the WTT mixed doubles charts, was consistently solid against the world No.4 Hong Kong pair. Even the solitary game they dropped was a tight affair in the 11-6, 13-15, 11-9, 11-5 outcome. No Indian has ever gone better than bronze in the sport at the Asian Games, and even though beating the mighty Chinese might be an uphill task, Manush, 25, and Diya, 23, have already put themselves in a select club.
The Indians will take on China’s second-ranked pair of Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha in the semi-final later on Friday.
That was their goal—from the time they knew they could make a good pair months after starting out, and even this year on the back of their rise to the top eight mixed doubles pairs in the world.
“Winning an Asian Games medal is something we are working hard towards,” Diya had told HT in April. “We will go into this Asian Games as strong contenders,” Manush had said, “and we will try to make the best use of our youth.”
The men’s team scripted an Asian first for TT in the 2018 edition, from where Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra also returned with bronze in mixed doubles. In Hangzhou three years ago, the women’s doubles pair of Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee went on a stunning run to win bronze. At Aichi-Nagoya, Manush and Diya have kept the doubles success streak going for Indian TT.
