Macau [China], April 16 (ANI): India's challenge at the ITTF World Cup 2025 came to an early end on Wednesday, as Paris 2024 Olympians Manika Batra and Sreeja Akula failed to advance beyond the group stage of the prestigious table tennis tournament in Macao, as per the official website of Olympics.com

World No. 30 Manika Batra was knocked out after losing her Group 16 encounter to Brazil's Bruna Takahashi, ranked 24th in the world. The Brazilian emerged victorious with a 3-1 scoreline (13-11, 11-8, 11-4, 10-12). This marked Takahashi's second career win over Manika, having previously defeated the Indian 4-3 in the opening round of the 2021 World Championships--their only other meeting before today.

In Group 9, Sreeja Akula, ranked 35th and a Commonwealth Games gold medallist in mixed doubles, was outclassed 4-0 (11-8, 11-6, 11-9, 11-8) by Romania's Bernadette Szocs. The three-time Olympian and reigning European Games champion Szocs topped her group without dropping a single game, having also defeated Australia's Constantina Psihogios 4-0 (11-6, 11-1, 12-10, 11-3) earlier in the competition.

ITTF World Cup is being conducted in two stages - group matches and knockouts.

Both Akula and Batra finished runners-up in Group 9 and Group 16, respectively, and failed to progress to the knockouts.

The knockout stage is scheduled to begin on Thursday and will be held in a best-of-seven games format. The ITTF World Cup 2025 ends on Sunday.

India have never won a medal in table tennis at the ITTF World Cup.

Earlier, the world number 30th Manika defeated the world number 186 Maylis Giret of New Caledonia 4-0 (11-1, 11-2, 11-6, 11-4) in the Group 16 match, the world number 34 Akula beat Australia's Constantina Psihogios, 68th in the women's singles table tennis rankings, 3-1 (11-9, 11-4, 11-8, 6-11), as per Olympics.com.

The men's and women's players have been divided into 16 groups featuring three players each and the group toppers will make it to the knockouts.

India does not have any participants in the men's draw.

The group stage matches have four games each and players will be ranked based on the overall win-loss ratio across both fixtures and players with the best ratio in terms of games won across both their matches will qualify for the knockouts. (ANI)