At the 2019 Commonwealth Championships, a dozen nations, all current or former British territories, gathered in Cuttack, India to crown table tennis champions. After claiming both the women's and men's team titles on Friday, the host nation set its sights on the available doubles and singles awards. One by one, the doubles championships went the hosts' way. With the women's, men's and mixed doubles titles secured, India was a perfect five-for-five going into the singles events. Although India had fielded the strongest team, this did not guarantee individual success. The women's field was also leveled dramatically when top seed and world #56 Manika Batra of India withdrew due to illness. By the time the women's singles field reached the finals, however, the home crowd could relax. With Madhurika Patkar and Ayhika Mukherjee's success in the semifinals, another gold for India was assured, in this case a 4-0 win for the latter. With only one event remaining, the pressure was on the Indian men to complete the historic sweep. With world #24 Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and #32 Sharath Kamal Achanta in the draw, the partisan home fans could be forgiven a measure of overconfidence. As it turned out, this confidence was justified but misplaced. As in the team events, the big stars stumbled, only to see an unlikely hero raise the banner for India. In both cases, the deus ex machina was played by world #120 Harmeet Desai (pictured). In the final, he overcame his heavily favored colleague Sathiyan Gnanasekaran in an extremely dramatic seven games, (9-11, 6-11, 11-5, 11-8, 17-15, 7-11, 11-9). While Desai and Mukherjee enjoy their individual glories, they can also revel in their contributions to a thoroughly dominant team performance. In the end, India proved to be the perfect, if not perfectly gracious, hosts.

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