Sathiyan, Mouma are top seeds; Karia makes quantum jump

Pudhucherry, January 15, 2015: Petroleum Sports Promotion Board’s G. Sathiyan has been given the pride of place when men’s singles seeding list was finalized for the 76th Senior Nationals, being conducted here at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium here today.

Gujarat’s Devesh Karia occupies the No. 2 position on the list with reigning national champion, Sanil Shetty, pushed to the No. 3 spot. Even more pathetic was the case of runner-up Harmeet Desai, who doesn’t even figure among the top-16.

In fact, he, along with former national champion Anthony Amalraj had to play the qualifiers here to make it to the main draw. All these were because they had given preference to playing abroad in various leagues, skipping the domestic national ranking events. Both Amalraj and Desai have, however, made it to the main draw after emerging leader in groups 11 and group 35, respectively.

Sathiyan, with two domestic back-to-back titles to his name, has 360 points to take the top perch in the ranking list and thus the top-seeding for the senior nationals here. He won both the West and East Zone championships at Gandhidham and Durgapur last year. Closely on his heels was Devesh Karia, who beat Sathiyan at Indore’s Central Zone event and Abhishek Yadav at Agra in the North Zone championships, with 225 points. Karia had been in a roaring form and he was instrumental in taking Gujarat to the semifinals in team events.

Shetty, who had a moderate domestic season, has still managed to log 165 points to keep the No. 3 position in the seeding list, while Lalrin Puia of Mizoram was just behind him at No. 4 with 10 points less.  Rajasthan’s Yadav, with his reasonable outing this season and with a runner-up position in at Agra, was seeded No. 5 and another former national champion, Soumyajit Ghosh, with 140 points—he has not won a single title this year—has managed to be among top eight. He is placed at No. 7 with Tamil Nadu’s Sushmit Sriram following him at No. 8 to complete the seeding list for the nationals.

However, one unfortunate thing is that Achanta Sharath Kamal, who had ruled the Indian table tennis for quite a number of years and a regular phenomenon at the senior national championships, does not have a single point as he has not appeared in any national ranking event, nor the nationals here owing to his club engagements.

The case was more or less the same with Amalraj who too, like Sharath and Harmeet, gave a skip to the domestic events and preferred playing leagues abroad.   

At the end of the group engagements, 59 paddlers have qualified for the main draw which will be of 64 players—six of the group qualifiers will play another qualifying round to make the main draw cut. With no byes offered all the seeded players will be seen in action in the first round of the main draw which begins later tonight.

Mouma top-seed

Thirty-two-year-old Mouma Das has earned herself the top-seed position well ahead of the young lot, including national title holder Ankita Das, who has been pushed to No. 7 spot, following her inconsistent performance this season. In fact, Maharashtra’s Pooja Sahasrabudhe is seeded at No. 2 and former national champion Poulami Ghatak at No. 3. Manika Batra, who had a mixed bag of a season, has managed to be the No. 4 but West Bengal’s Mousumi Paul, at No.5, has made a quantum jump. Madhurika Patkar, too, has done anything remarkable throughtout the season and it is reflected at her No. 6 seed while AAI’s Krittwika Sinha Roy is at the No. 8 slot of the seeding list.

The biggest loser, however, was Suthirtha Mukherjee. The West Bengal girl, despite her two back-to-back titles this year, was not eligible to participate in the senior nationals here following her suspension by the TTFI on age related issue.

Unlike the men’s main draw, the top-four seeded women will get byes in first round matches, slated for tonight, and will join the fray only from tomorrow. 

A TTFI Press release