Manav Thakkar stuns world No. 13 Darko Jorgic in Zagreb upset

Manav Thakkar turned a tough draw into a defining result, beating world No. 13 Darko Jorgic 3-1 in the Men’s Singles Round of 32 at Arena Zagreb. The Indian, listed at world No. 35, absorbed the first-game loss and then won three straight to complete one of the sharpest upsets of WTT Contender Zagreb 2026.

The match on Table 2 opened with a narrow Jorgic edge, 12-10, but Thakkar answered immediately with an 11-9 second game and kept the pressure on from there. He closed out the next two games 11-8 and 12-10, a score line that showed not just resilience but poise in the tightest moments against a player ranked 22 places above him and seeded No. 4 in the draw.

That is what makes the result so consequential for Thakkar. It was not a one-game swing or a lucky run of points, but a four-game win over a top-15 opponent who entered Zagreb with real momentum. For Indian table tennis, the victory reads like more than an isolated shock: it suggests Thakkar’s ceiling may be rising fast enough to challenge players who are expected to control these early rounds.

Jorgic’s side of the story is harder to ignore. The Slovenian had won the Skopje tournament the previous week, then fell at the first hurdle in Zagreb, a surprise exit that exposes how quickly form can flip in the men’s game. For a player seeded among the event’s elite, losing to a lower-ranked opponent after a title run raises a direct question about consistency against dangerous draws and unfamiliar pressure.

Thakkar’s reward was a place in the Round of 16, and the implications of that passage extend beyond one bracket line. Beating a world No. 13 on a major stage, in a completed 3-1 result with every game decided by a few points, is the kind of win that can change how the field sees him. For Jorgic, the loss is a reminder that recent success in Skopje did not carry over into Zagreb, and that the margin between seed and upset victim can vanish in a single afternoon.