MP boys keep hopes alive; Mizo boys upset Maharashtra

Indore, February 5, 2013: All top teams, including group leaders, completed their first round formalities without a hint of any hitch in the 74th Junior and Youth National Table Tennis Championships at the Abhay Prashal Indoor Stadium here today.

But two northeastern states can take pride that they have sounded a grim warning to bigger teams, at least for the future. Mizoram boys, comprising the Petroleum Academy trainees, defeated Maharashtra B 3-0 in the first round and Meghalaya girls extended Karnataka 3-2, both happening in the junior sections.

The effect of Lalhunhida and Lalrinpuia were so good that the two carved out the wins over their Maharashtra rivals. Both the Mizo boys took their singles against Arbaz Shaikh, Parth Phansekar, in that order, and then joined hands to beat the Maharashtra pair of Arbaz Shaikh and Sudhakar Pandey to wrap it up. 

Among the Youth boys hosts Madhya Pradesh defeated Gujarat 3-2 in the first round to keep their qualification hopes alive along with other favourtes and among the Youth girls PSPB, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra A, Gujarat, Assam, Delhi, North Bengal and Kerala moved a step ahead to qualifying for the main draw.

For MP, Pratish Janjire proved to be the hero as he beat Henis Shah in the decider 3-1 (11-4, 10-12, 11-7, 11-9) to move a step closer to qualification. Earlier, he had beaten Ravi Joshi 4-1 and Satyajeet Ghosh downed Henish Shah 3-1.

As for the junior boys’ team events, there were no surprises barring the loss of Maharashtra B to Mizoram who won their first round matches against the strong contender. The other exception was West Bengal boys conceding a match to Haryana before winning 3-1.

Similarly, in girls’ matches in junior category at least one strong team was made to struggle for its win as Meghalaya stretched Karnataka fully. Despite the heroics of M.V. Spoorthy, who won both her singles, Tanushree Das Gupta did the star turn for Meghalaya. First she beat M. Madhurya 3-2 (8-11, 17-15, 8-11,, 11-8, 13-11) in her singles and then combined with Medhavi Chettri to take the doubles against the Karnataka pair of Spoorthy and Archana Kamal in straight sets to put the northeastern team 2-1 up. It must have given some kind of worries in the Karnataka ranks, but they did not press the panic button as Spoorthy restored parity by winning her second singles 3-2 against Tanushree and then Madhurya blanked out Medhavi to bring a sigh of relief.

The results: (1st round):

Youth Boys: PSPB bt Bihar 3-0, Maharashtra A bt Himachal Pradesh 3-0, Delhi bt Kerala 3-0, Manipur bt Chhatisgarh 3-2, West Bengal bt Andhra Pradesh 3-0, Assam bt J&K 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt Chandigarh 3-0, UP bt Tripura 3-0, North Bengal bt Meghalaya 3-0, Haryana bt Jharkhand 3-0, Madhya Pradesh bt Gujarat 3-2, Punjab w/o Pondicherry, Karnataka bt Uttarakhand 3-0, Mizoram bt Orissa 3-1.

Youth Girls: PSPB bt Meghalaya 3-0, west Bengal bt Chhatisgarh 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt Uttarakhand 3-0, Andhra Pradesh bt Chandigarh 3-0, Maharashtra A w/o Tripura, Gujarat bt Karnataka 3-0, Maharashtra B bt J&K 3-0, Delhi bt Bihar 3-0, North Bengal bt Uttar Pradesh 3-1, Kerala bt Jharkhand 3-0.

Junior Boys: PSPBA bt Bihar 3-0, Delhi bt Chandigarh 3-0, West Bengal bt Haryana 3-1, Punjab bt Manipur 3-0, Rajasthan bt Madya Pradesh 3-0, Jharkhand w/o Chhatisgarh, Maharashtra A bt J&K 3-0, Andhra Pradesh bt Uttarakhand 3-0, Mizoram bt Maharashtra B 3-0, Karnaraka bt Meghalaya 3-0, North Bengal bt Kerala 3-0, Orissa bt Tripura 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt Himachal Pradesh 3-0, Gujarat w/o Pondicherry.

Junior Girls: West Bengal bt Bihar 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt Rajasthan 3-0, North Bengal bt Tripura 3-0, Maharashtra A bt Assam 3-0, Andhra Pradesh bt Uttarakhand 3-0, Delhi bt Haryana 3-0, Kerala w/o Pondicherry, Gujarat bt J&K 3-0, Karnataka bt Meghalaya 3-2, Maharashtra bt Himachal Pradesh 3-0, Chandigarh bt Punjab 3-1.

A TTFI Press release