The Indian men slipped to the fifth slot from the fourth last time while the women ended two rungs above from the 12 in the previous edition. ``But for the faux pas from the Asian Table Tennis Union, which had seeded India fifth instead of fourth as it should have been, the men's team could have finished fourth as there was no chance of avoiding the top four teams like China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan,'' said Rao.

He said Chetan Baboor, S Raman and Arup Basak had their moments, especially in the individual events, where all made it to third round. The efforts of Raman, who stretched world No 6 Yan Sen of China to four games, came in for praise from Rao.

The coach felt NR Indu was disappointing and had just one win in the team events. So he had to bring in MS Mythili as the first player, PoulomiGhatak as the second and Indu the third. ``The move clicked with Mythili winning both her matches against Australia to enable India to fight for the 9-16 positions. It was Mythili who again authored India's win over Kazakhstan and Malaysia to set up a meeting with New Zealand and eventually finish 10th.''Poulomi Ghatak's show against World ranked Kim Huon Hy of North Korea in the third round of the individual event was the silver lining, said Rao. ``It was an attack of nerves at a crunch time that let her down. ''

Mythili's effort equally merited attention as she had the former world ranked Indonesian Rossy Dipoyanti on the run for the best part before losing her way in the decider during a third round encounter.

The NIS-coach said he was indebted to the financial help from Table Tennis Players' Parents Association and the confidence reposed in him by the TNTTA secretary D V Sundar.