Record entries for North Zone TT

New Delhi, November 27, 2012:  Despite the absence of top three men paddlers—Achinta Sharath Kamal, Anthony Amalraj and Soumyajit Ghosh—the enthusiasm of participants at the National Ranking (North Zone) Table Tennis championships underway at the Thyagraj Stadium can be gauged by the number of players that have entered here.

As for top women paddlers, all including national champion Poulomi Ghatak, K. Shamini, Ankita Das, Pooja Sahasrabuddhe and Divya Deshpande are playing. Only Mouma Das has given a skip to the event citing personal reasons.

With 21 states and 18 institutions sending in entries, the number has swelled to 670 in ten categories, the largest so far this season. And, after qualifications, only those who had a semblance of a chance have survived to make it to the main draw in sub-junior boys, girls and Youth boys and Youth girls sections.

It is understandable that with the West Zone event still in limbo, it was but natural for the players to ensure participation in the ongoing North Zone championships in order to get rankings before the nationals. In fact, a better ranking always earns a berth in the respective state team. Additionally, with the big guns skipping the event here, it gives an opportunity for the second or third rung players who can aspire to win here.

Incidentally, this is the last lap for the junior paddlers, both boys and girls, to test their skills and be ready to be picked by the selectors for the World Junior Table Tennis championships to be held at Hyderabad from December 9. 

Among the qualifiers today, 44 paddlers made the grade from junior boys while in the Youth section, two less qualified as only the group topper makes the cut. As for junior and Youth girls, 24 each have made the cut.

Surprisingly, even some of the regulars like Karnam Spoorthy (AAI) and N. Vidhya (TN) in Youth girls and Sushmit Sriram (AAI), Nishad Shah (AI) and Abhishek Yadav (PSPBA) in Youth boys section have been unable to succeed in their mission of avoiding the qualifiers, zonal after zonal, as only the top eight players get direct entries into the main draw, based on their national rankings.

However, Abhishek Yadav should draw satisfaction from the fact that he was top-seeded in the junior boys section. Along with the Ajmer Academy boy, Utkarsh Gupta (Del), K. Rohit (TN), Sabhay Virmani (Del), Sudhanshu Grover (PSPBA), Anirban Ghosh (WB), Arjun Ghosh (WB) and {Pankaj Kumar (Raj) form the other seven seeds, in that order.

In junior girls section, Suthirtha Mukherjee (WB) has been seeded No. 1 while K. Spoorthy (AAI), Mallika Bhandarkar (AI), Manika Batra (Del), Senora D’Souza (Mah), Ayika Mukherjee (WB), T. Reeth Rishya (PSPB) and S. Narsimhapriya (PSPB) follow the leader in order of seeding.

A TTFI Press release