TABLE TENNIS – Bahrain’s pairings of Salman Abuhamda and Ali Saleh, and Mohamed Saleh and Rashed Sanad, were both victorious yesterday in their opening matches of the men’s doubles tournament at the 29th ITTF-ATTU Asian Championships 2026, currently being played in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Abuhamda and Ali Saleh won their round-of-64 match against Sri Lanka’s Chameera Ginige and Nuwantha Kahawaththa 3-0 (11-8, 11-6, 11-9) to march through to the next stage, while Mohamed Saleh and Sanad joined them moving forward after beating Turkmenistan’s Dortguly Allanazarov and Mukam Artykov 3-0 (11-8, 11-3, 11-3).
Abuhamda and Ali Saleh will next take on Qi Shen Wong and Javen Choong from Malaysia in their last 32 clash today, while Mohamed Saleh and Sanad will go up against the South Korean duo of Minhyeok Kim and Gyuhyeon Park.
Elsewhere in the championships, Abuhamda and Sanad both advanced to the men’s singles round of 64 with wins yesterday in their first assignments.
Abuhamda ousted Saudi Arabia’s Salem Alsuwailem 3-0 (16-14, 11-3, 11-7) to set up a meeting with Singapore’s Clarence Chew; while Sanad beat Nawin Mekamporn of Thailand 3-1 (11-7, 3-11, 14-12, 11-5) and will next take on Dongsoo Kang of South Korea.
Meanwhile, Ali Saleh and Mohamed Saleh both narrowly lost their opening men’s singles matches.
Ali Saleh went down fighting against Ylyas Allanazarov of Turkmenistan 2-3 (3-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-4, 10-12) in their round of 128 encounter; while Mohamed Saleh fell to John Russel Misal from the Philippines 2-3 (11-5, 5-11, 12-10, 6-11, 4-11) at the same stage.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
&uuid=(email))