Profitable day for West Bengal in East Zone National Ranking Table Tennis

Durgapur, October 28, 2014: It was a profitable day for hosts West Bengal as seven their boys and three girls achieved the qualification norm in their respective groups to enter the main draw of the National Ranking (East Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the Sidhu Kanu Indoor Stadium, City Centre, here today.

The championships, third in a row, kicked off with over 600 paddlers competing in 10 different categories which carries a total prize money of Rs. 5.76 lakh.

Out of 28 groups in the Sub-Junior Boys section, West Bengal’s Rohan Ghosh, Sayan Chatterjee, Soham Bhattacharya, Rupam Das, Suhubhadeep Das, Soumyajeet Bose and Soumyodip Ghosh topped their groups to move a step forward and join the top eight seeded players, who have been directly given enty into the main draw.

But as for their girls, which was of 20 groups, only three girls—Prapti Sen, Rinisha Das and Shrubabati Moitra—made the cut while four of Telangana girls entered the main round. Maharashtra B, as usual, saw three of their sub-junior girls qualifying while Tamil Nadu also registered its presence with Harini Udaya Kumar, Deepika Neelakandan and Kowishika Venkatashan progressing.

Six boys of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board Academy also moved into the main draw but they have not fielded any girls in the sub-junior section.

Delhi’s Vanshika Sachar and Vanshika Bhargava, who played well to enter the knockout stage at Indore, qualified along with Ishita Gupta. Vanshika’s brother, Kashish, Payas Jain, who won the Cadet title at Indore, Yashansh Malik and Angad Singh all made the knockout stage without a whimper.

But unfortunately, North Bengal with its thin presence, saw two boys in Jayabrata Bhattacharjee and Ayan Ganguly makin the grade while in the sub-junior girls category Saswati Gupta was the lone qualifier.

In Cadet Boys and Girls sections, the qualification events have begun and main draw events will begin tomorrow. The sub-junior Boys and Girls, however, will play one round in the main draw later tonight.

The medals in all the four categories will be decided tomorrow evening and qualification events in the junior boys and girls categories will follow the medal ceremony.

A TTFI Press release