Paddler Sathiyan alleges unfair refereeing at WTT Contender Lagos, says he is deprived of victory

Lagos (Nigeria), June 21 (IANS): Former Indian national champion Sathiyan Gnanasekaran took to social media on Friday to highlight “unfair refereeing” during his 2-3 loss to French player Thibault Poret in the men’s singles round of 16 at the WTT Contender Lagos 2024 here Friday.

Sathiyan, ranked 71st in the WTT world rankings, made a comeback from two sets down and was leading 2-0 in the fifth and final set when he claimed the referee made “unfair” decisions that cost him the match. Sathiyan lost to 111th-ranked Poret 8-11, 8=11, 11-4, 11-5, 6-11 at the Sir Molade Okoya Thomas Indoor Sports Hall in Lagos, Nigeria.

In his Instagram post titled ‘Unfair refereeing at its worst here in Lagos’, Sathiyan said the ‘unfair refereeing’ had broken his rhythm and left him disappointed and discouraged.

“I usually never complain about these things, but what just happened today is beyond imagination and completely unfair,” Sathiyan said in his post.

“I came back well after 2 sets behind and I was leading 2-0 in the final set. The opponent was the victim of a service fault (he even received a warning before), and after numerous arguments with the referee, I came out of the game. “In blue, the opponent took a medical timeout just to kill time even though he had no medical problems until then, and to my great surprise, he also been granted,” Sathiyan wrote in his post.

“And then, when I was leading 3-1 in the last set, I received a service fault out of nowhere without even a warning, on the serve in which I was winning a lot of points, probably just to completely tie it up spoiled my rhythm,” said the Indian player, a multiple medalist at the Commonwealth Games.

Sathiyan, who won a bronze medal in the men’s team event at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, said this type of refereeing at the international level was very disappointing.

“We players work so hard and have such unfair refereeing at international level and to steal a match like this is certainly very disappointing,” Sathiyan wrote in the message to World Table Tennis (@wtt), the governing body of this sport. at an international level.