Indore, February 8, 2013: Gnasekaran Sathiyan of Petroleum
Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) and Krittwicka Sinha Roy of West Bengal have been
given the top billings in the singles events of the Youth Boys and Youth Girls
sections at the 74th Junior and Youth National Table Tennis Championships at
the Abhay Prashal Indoor Stadium here today.
Sathiyan, last year’s runner-up in his section, has managed
to keep his ranking intact while in the girls’ category Krittiwicka, who has
been seeded No. 1 for the first time, has got a real shot in the arm. In a way,
it also proves her consistency this season where she earned the maximum ranking
points to go up the ladder.
Unfortunately, PSPB’s Ankita Das and Manika Batra, have had
a patchy season which reflects in their seeding here. Olympian Ankita Das has
been seeded No. 2, followed by Manika who is at No. 4. Both the paddlers have
not had good outings at the team events here earlier, but things, could reverse
when it comes to playing the singles events.
But among the Youth Girls, Suthirtha Mukherjee has had the
best of season and deservingly she has been seeded No. 3 in the singles event.
Suthirtha is the third PSPB players in top eight with the last place going to
Reeth Rishya. She too has been on the circuit for a long period but is yet to
break into the top four whereas Suthirha, a new entrant to the circuit, has
made bigger strides. Nikhat Banu, who turns out for Andhra Pradesh, has been
around for quite some time and showed glimpses of great improvement during the
team events. Hence it is not surprising to see her being seeded No. 6.
Coming back to Sathiyan, he should consider himself lucky to
have been seeded No. 1 because of the absence of both senior national champion
Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet Desai. The duo is currently in Sweden and are preparing for the Commonwealth
Championships to be held in New Delhi
this May.
No doubt, Nitin Thiruvengadam, the promising paddler from
Tamil Nadu, too has gained because of the two top players missing from the
line-up. Nitin is seeded at No. 3 while Delhi ’s
Utkarsh Gupta, who played brilliantly in the team events yesterday, breaks into
the top eight slots. Another Tamil Nadu boy, Sameera Kumar, has been seeded No.
4 and it is to be seen if he can cash in on this opportunity.
Meanwhile, 40 in Youth Boys section and 32 in Youth Girls
category have qualified for the singles main draw events which begin tomorrow.
They will be joined by the top eight players, who are seeded directly, in their
sections. When the real action starts tomorrow it will present a clear picture
of how players are shaping up for the Commonwealth Championships. The selection
committee members would be watching their performance before picking the squad
for the New Delhi
event.
Top 8 seeds:
Youth Boys: G. Sathiyan (PSPB), Sourav Saha (PSPB), Nithin
Thiruvengadam (TN), Sameera Kumar (TN), Sudhanshu Grover (PSPBA), Abhishek
Yadav PSPBA), Utkarsh Gupta (Del), Raj Mondal (N.Bengal).
Youth Girls: Krittiwicka Sinha Roy (WB), Ankita Das (PSPB),
Suthirtha Mukherjee (PSPB), Manika Batra (PSPB), Ayhika Mukherjee (WB), Nikhat
Banu (AP), Mallika Bhandarkar (Mah), Reeth Rishya (PSPB).
A TTFI Press rlease
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