India, May 17 -- Sreeja Akula, the India No.1 in singles, suffered another early exit as she crashed out in the opening round of the World Table Tennis Championships in Doha while the country's doubles pairs made winning starts on Saturday.

Also getting off the blocks in singles were young Manush Shah and Diya Chitale with contrasting opening-round victories at the Qatar University.

World No.34 Sreeja took the first game but then surrendered to a 4-1 (11-9, 8-11, 6-11, 5-11, 2-11) defeat to Thailand's Suthasini Sawettabut, ranked 84 in the ITTF charts.

It marks another disappointing result this year for the 26-year-old from Hyderabad, who had displaced Manika Batra as India No.1 last year. Sreeja had a fine 2024 season in which she won...