Ghorpade and Desai End India’s 72-Year Mixed Doubles Wait

Yashaswini Ghorpade and Harmeet Desai won India’s first mixed doubles medal at the Asian Table Tennis Championships in 72 years, claiming bronze at the 2026 edition in Tashkent. The Indian pair assured themselves of a place on the podium by reaching the semi-finals of the continental event.

Ghorpade and Desai produced a stirring comeback in the quarter-finals, defeating South Korea’s Park Ganghyeon and Lee Daeun 3-2 in a contest that lasted more than 42 minutes. Their run ended in the semi-finals against Japan’s Sora Matsushima and Miwa Harimoto, but the bronze represented a significant landmark for Indian table tennis.

Quarter-final comeback secured historic medal

The medal was confirmed when Ghorpade and Desai came through their quarter-final against Park and Lee. The Indian duo began strongly, taking the opening game 11-6, before the South Korean pair responded to win the next two games 11-8 and 11-8.

Facing elimination, Ghorpade and Desai recovered in the fourth game. They edged it 11-9 to force a deciding fifth game, then held their nerve again to win the decider 11-9. The 11-6, 8-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-9 result sent them into the last four and guaranteed India a mixed doubles medal.

It was a result built on a notable turnaround after the Indian pair had fallen behind by two games to one. With the Asian Table Tennis Championships awarding bronze medals to the losing semi-finalists, the quarter-final victory ensured Ghorpade and Desai would return with a medal regardless of the outcome of their next match.

The semi-final paired them with Matsushima and Harimoto of Japan. Ghorpade and Desai remained competitive across the match, but the Japanese duo won in three games. Matsushima and Harimoto took the contest 11-9, 11-9, 11-8, ending the Indian pair’s campaign while leaving them with bronze.

The straight-games result did not diminish the importance of the medal. Each game in the semi-final was closely contested, with Ghorpade and Desai falling by two points in each of the first two games before the Japanese pair completed the victory in the third.

A long-awaited Asian Championships achievement

Ghorpade and Desai’s bronze ended a long wait for India in mixed doubles at the Asian Table Tennis Championships. The previous Indian mixed doubles medal at the competition had come in 1954, when Yatin Vyas and Meena Parande won silver.

India’s earlier mixed doubles success at the event dated to the inaugural Asian Table Tennis Championships in 1952. Kalyanpur Jayant and Gool Nasikwala won gold two years before Vyas and Parande collected their silver medal.

That history makes the Tashkent bronze especially meaningful. By reaching the semi-finals, Ghorpade and Desai became the first Indian mixed doubles pair in more than seven decades to add another Asian Championships medal in the discipline.

Their campaign featured both a five-game quarter-final escape against South Korea and a semi-final against Japan in which the margins remained narrow. The bronze medal gives India a new entry in its Asian Championships mixed doubles record after a 72-year gap.