Dinesh Deshappriya gained a silver medal at the ITTF Thailand Para Open Table Tennis Championship held at Pattaya, Thailand yesterday. Deshappriya who barely missed Paralympics qualification played for men’s singles class 9 reached the final yesterday but lost to Koyo Iwabuchi of Japan with three seter game 3-11, 4-11, 7-11 and finally had to satisfy with silver medal.
Deshappriya has showed a good fighting spirit in his journey to the final. The semi-final between Chinese paddler Zhao Yi Qing and Dinesh Deshappriya turned out to be a thrilling game to finish in five sets. The first set was won by Dinesh 11-9 while he lost the second set 7-11. Once more Dinesh came back to win the third set 11-6 and Chinese paddler equal two all with winning 11-9 in the fourth set. The fifth and deciding game Dinesh was able to win 11-8 to reach the final with 3-2 lead.
Previously at the quarter finals Dinesh beat Iranian paddler with three straight sets 11-1, 11-4, 11-6. At the group stage Dinesh was able to beat Korean opponent with 3-0 lead while he made hard fought 3-2 win over Chinese paddler Liu Chaodong and beat Thailand opponent Samee Sukij with three setters gamer 11-3, 11-3, 11-3.
Sinhala 
English