Table Tennis: Soumyajit Ghosh-G Sathiyan settle for silver at Bulgaria Open

India's Soumyajit Ghosh and G Sathiyan failed to cause an upset as they ended up with a silver in the men's doubles at the Bulgaria Open Table Tennis in Panagyurishte. The Indian duo came close to toppling the top-seeded Japanese duo of Jin Uda and Maharu Yoshimura only to lose 13-11, 7-11, 4-11, 11-5, 5-11.

It was an entertaining opening game, where the Indians gave all sorts of troubles to their opponents. Despite leading comfortably, the Japanese were expected to take the game but the Indians staged a fine recovery to win the extended game.

Startled by their excellent understanding in the first game, Uda and Yoshimura played a steady game to win the second game and the third one rather easily.

But the Indians came back aggressively in the fourth and stopped them well short, maintaining a four-point lead almost throughout.

But the Japanese allowed very little liberty in the decider as they led 3-1 straightaway. The Indians, who scored several service winners in the fourth, failed to keep the tempo even as the Japanese upped the ante to quickly pull the rug from under the Indians feet.

For Ueda and Yoshimura this was second title in three World Tour final appearances they won at the 2013 Japan Open and 2017 China Open. However, for Ghosh and Sathiyan this was their first appearance together in a men's doubles final.

Defeat for the duo means that India are still waiting for their first gold medal on the ITTF World Tour.