Thursday, February 7, 2013

MP boys, Kerala girls cause upsets in Junior and Youth National Table Tennis


Indore, February 6, 2013: The Madhya Pradesh in Youth Boys section and Kerala in the Junior Girls category caused upsets to enter the quarterfinals of the 74th Junior and Youth National Table Tennis Championships at the Abhay Prashal Indoor Stadium here today. Incidentally, in both cases the sufferers were Maharashtra B.

But for these minor aberrations, all other favourites booked their quarterfinal berths. But what was remarkable was the pressure mounted by boys from Mizoram who continued their onward march, beating Maharashtra A in the Youth section. It was a hard-fought 3-2 victory for the Mizo boys.

As for the hosts, Satyajeet Ghosh played a stellar role to take his team to the quarterfinals, winning both his singles. He first accounted for Maharashtra B’s Rhys Albuquerque 11-8, 12-0, 12-10 and then took on Jineet Lilani to win 11-7, 7-11, 11-9, 5-11, 11-8. These two matches paved the way for MP’s last eight entry after Pratish Janjire lost his singles to Jineet Lilani 9-11, 11-7, 6-11, 6-11 in an uncharacteristic way. But he made amends in the decider after the scores level as he downed Rhys in his second singles 3-0.

On the other hand, the Kerala girls, led by Seraha Jacob, outwitted Maharashtra B to make book their quarterfinal berth after a very long time. Seraha defeated Shirin Inamdar 9-11, 11-4, 11-7, 11-4 after losing the first game in a grim battle. But once he gained momentum in the second, it was Seraha all the way. Though Marina Rani lost her singles to Ashlesha Trehan 2-3, the little girl combined with the experienced Seraha to beat the Maharashtra B pair of Dyuti Patki and Ashlesha Trehan 11-6, 11-9, 5-11, 11-9 to put Kerala in the driver’s seat.

Meanwhile, Delhi girls lost to Tamil Nadu 3-2 after some fine fight back. But the Tamil Nadu girls, with loads of experience at this level, outplayed their opponents. For Delhi, Sanya Sehgal won both her singles against Sumana R. Krishnan and V. Sneha but  Riti Shankar lost her matches which ultimately turned the tables against Delhi.

The Mizoram boys, having been trained at the Petroleum Academy at Ajmer, proved too hot for Maharashtra A boys in the Youth section as Lalhunhiua and Lalrinpuia played their role to near perfection with the latter winning two matches to put the issue beyond Maharashtra A.

Earlier, Madhya Pradesh entered the pre-quarterfinals in three sections but only the Youth boys progressed while the others fell by the wayside, succumbing to bigger teams.

Results: (All pre-quarterfinals):
Youth Boys: PSPB bt Uttar Pradesh 3-0, Delhi bt Andhra Pradesh 3-1, Rajasthan bt Karnataka 3-1, West Bengal bt Kerala 3-0, North Bengal bt Gujarat 3-1, Mizoram bt Maharashtra A 3-2, Madhya Pradesh bt Maharashtra B 3-2, Tamil Nadu bt Haryana 3-1.

Youth Girls: PSPB bt Haryana 3-0, Maharashtra B bt Madhya Pradesh 3-0, Andhra Pradesh bt Rajasthan 3-0, Gujarat bt Chandigarh 3-1, Maharashtra A bt Punjab 3-0, West Bengal bt Kerala 3-0, North Bengal bt Karnataka 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt Delhi 3-2.

Junior Boys: PSPBA bt Karnataka 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt Andhra Pradesh 3-0, North Bengal bt Haryana 3-0, Rajasthan bt Assam 3-0, West Bengal bt Bihar 3-0, Mizoram bt Orissa 3-0, Maharashtra A bt Gujarat 3-1, Delhi bt Madhya Pradesh 3-0.

Junior Girls: West Bengal bt Karnataka 3-0, Andhra Pradesh bt Chandigatrh 3-0, Delhi bt Orissa 3-0, Maharashtra A bt Uttar Pradesh 3-1, North Bengal bt Bihar 3-0, Kerala bt Maharashtra B 3-1, Gujarat bt Uttarakhand 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt Assam 3-1.

Press release

No comments:

Post a Comment