Table Tennis: Sri Lanka men and women beat New Zealand at Commonwealth Championship

Sri Lanka defeated New Zealand 3-2 as Nirmala Jayasinghe outsmarted the rest with a brilliant performance at the 20th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship held in Surat, Gujarat, India.

Former Sri Lanka champion Jayasinghe’s performance helped Sri Lanka beat favourites New Zealand easily in their opening match of the team events.

Skipper Rohan Sirisena however suffered a 2-3 defeat in his rounds of the team event.

Sirisena could not come to his usual form and lost the first two sets but later on he recovered to win the third and fourth sets to keep Sri Lanka’s hopes alive. 

But he was beaten comprehensively in the decisive fifth set.

Jayasinghe, the second player from Sri Lanka won the first match 3-1 against New Zealand top seed Yi-Sien Lin.

Prasad de Silva lost the third round to Josh Alexandre 1-3 but Sirisena brought Sri Lanka level 2-all by beating Yi-Sien Lin 3-2.

In the final and deciding round Jayasinghe made his presence felt with a stunning performance to beat Mathew Ball 3-2. 

The Sri Lanka women team however beat Northern Ireland comfortably 3-0.

Hansani Kapugeekiyana, Ishara Madurangi and Erandi Warusavithana recorded wins against Ashley Givan (3-1), Emma Ludlow (3-1) and Erin Thompson (3-1) respectively to walk out winners.

The Men’s team will take on Scotland, India and Northern Ireland while the Women’s team is set to meet Singapore and England in the forthcoming rounds of the team events.