Soumyajit and Poulami are top seeds

Raipur, January 9, 2013: Soumyajit Ghosh has been rewarded for his excellent form this season with the top slot in men’s singles event at the ongoing National Table Tennis Championships here today. And, for the first time in many nationals, Achanta Sharath Kamal has been denied the top perch, despite being the only Indian paddler in world’s top-100 list.

Sharath, whose current world ranking is 70, was seeded No. 6 at the Institutional Championships last August, which was also the season opener. On the other hand, Soumyajit Ghosh was seeded No. 5 at the Lucknow nationals but has since grown in stature by winning most zonals.  In contrast, national champion Anthony Amal Raj, who was the No. 2 seed at Lucknow, has dropped down to No. 5 here.   

According to the seeding list released today, all the top four seeds are from the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board with both Sanil Shetty at No. 2 and Soumyadeep Roy at No. 3 are ahead of Amal Raj. Harmeet Desai (No. 4), Subhajit Saha (No. 7) and Haryana’s Jubin Kumar at No. 8 complete the top seeding.

In women’s singles, the first four slots have been taken by PSPB paddlers—national champion Poulami Ghatak, K. Shamini, Ankita Das and Madhurika Patkar in that order, followed by Divya Deshpande (Mah-A), Manika Batra (Del), Pooja Sahasrabudhe (PSPB) and veteran Mousmi Paul from West Bengal.

  

All these top players will be seen in action when the main draw events begin tomorrow. That is when the focus will shift to these individuals who will be eying on the coveted men and women’s singles trophies as well as the top prize money. The men’s winner stands to gain Rs 2.30 lakh while the women’s winner will carry home Rs.1.45 lakh from the total prize purse of Rs 9.58 lakh.

PSPB favourites

As for tomorrow’s team championship finals, the moot point would be what plans the Delhi women and West Bengal men are going to adopt to counter the PSPB teams. With such a star power in their arsenal, PSPB paddlers would naturally want to finish off the job quickly. This would also mean that there will be some opening available for Delhi and West Bengal to exploit.

Last year, Maharashtra ‘A’ women did precisely that in the semifinals and Delhi can draw inspiration to repeat what they did. But the PSPB women will approach the final here differently, always thinking to recapture the title. Poulomi Ghatak, Ankita Das, K. Shamini, Madhurika Patkar and Pooja Sahasrabudhe are all beatable and if Delhi manage to pull it off through Neha Aggarwal and Manika Batra—the latter will have to up the ante—it will do a world of good to the morale of the team.

On the other hand, Sharath Kamal, Soumyajit Ghosh and A. Amal Raj are good enough to run through West Bengal, particularly with Sharath in great shape and form. They also have the back-ups in Sanil Shetty and Soumyadeep Roy, but PSPB will hope their top three players accomplish the task. However, the West Bengal team has great warriors in Sougatha Sarkar, Sourav Saha and Souvik Kar who can be handful. Their semifinal match against Gujarat provided a glimpse of their ability last evening.

A TTFI Press release