The Indian women's team fought back with vengeance to edge past Canada 3-2 in a thrilling encounter in the second stage of the team competition in the 17th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships in Jaipur on Thursday.
The Indian men too started their second stage league campaign in style, thrashing New Zealand 3-0 in Group 'F'.
The women's team, which is ahead of Canada in the rankings, recovered splendidly after a bad start.
Mouma Das lost the first singles to Zhang Mo 4-11, 6-11, 8-11 and things looked bleak for India when Poulomi Ghatak also went down, losing to T Huen Sara 10-12, 11-7, 7-11, 8-11.
But Kumaresan Shamini brought India back into the tie by overpowering Qi Tang 6-11, 11-7, 11-4, 11-4.
National champion Poulomi then used all her experience to win a marathon against M Zhang 4-11, 11-7, 6-11, 11-7, 7-11, 11-7 and make the scoreline 2-2.
The onus was now on the diminutive Mouma, and she lived up to her billing in the decider.
Without conceding an inch, Mouma pulled off a 11-4, 11-6, 11-8 victory over Yuen Sara to settle the issue.
The men's team had a relatively easy outing against New Zealand. Shubhajit Saha gave India 1-0 lead with a 11-9, 11-7, 6-11, 11-4 victory over Zhilong Brad Chen.
Achanta Sharath Kamal consolidated the lead by scoring an easy 11-4, 11-8, 11-8 over Simon Wallace.
Soumyadeep Roy, however, struggled again but managed to prevail over Peter Craven 11-6, 12-14, 16-14, 11-5.
In other men's section, top seed Singapore beat England 3-0, Nigeria beat Scotland 3-0, and Australia beat Canada 3-1, while for the lower positions, Wales beat Northern Ireland 3-1.
In the women's section, Malaysia beat New Zealand 3-1 and Singapore beat Nigeria 3-0.
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