Indian paddlers qualify for preliminary rounds

New Delhi, May 13, 2013: All Indian paddlers made an impression at the ongoing World Table Tennis Championships in Paris, crossing the first hurdles in the group stages and making it to the preliminary rounds in their respective singles today.

With Achinta Sharath Kamal being the lone Indian to get a direct entry into the main draw of the championships, the other players in both the sections had to slug it out in the qualifiers to make most of the occasion to not only top their groups, but also qualify for the preliminary rounds.

In the preliminary rounds, Sanil Shetty, who had an exceptional outing in the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships at home last week, defeated Jose Miguel Ramirez of Gautemala 4-1, to move ahead. He will next take on Egyptian Saleh Ahmed in the next outing. Earlier in a group match he was stretched full by Estonian Aleksander Lusin but the Indian was up to the task to overcome his European rival.

Harmeet Desai and Soumyajit Ghosh too made progress in the prelims with victories over Pablo Tabachnik of Argentina and Zokhid Kenjaev of Uzbekistan, respectively. While Desai beat his opponent in straight games, Ghosh won 6-11,13-11,8-11,11-6,11-5,11-8. Desai will meet Poland's Robert Floras and Ghosh will play Julian Indeherberg from Belgium.

On the distaff side, K Shamini, Mouma Das, Neha Aggarwal and Madhurika Patkar have completed their group engagements to qualify for the preliminaries. Both Shamini and Mouma received in the preliminary round, Neha went through the motions by defeating Gokec Nur Gungor of Turkey 11-3,11-9,3-11,12-10,11-6.

Group results:

Men: Soumyajit Ghosh bt Kin Wa Leong (Mac) 11-7, 14-12, 11-9, 12-10, Soumyajit Ghosh bt Anthony Corbin (Tri) 11-7, 11-5, 11-6, 11-7.

Harmeet Desai bt Herman Matam (CMR) 11-6, 13-11, 11-8, 15-13, Harmeet Desai bt Aissa Belkadi (Alg) 4-11, 11-9, 5-11, 10-12,11-9,11-7, 11-2.

Sanil Shetty bt Mahbub Billah (Ban) 11-5, 11-3, 11-8, 11-6, Sanil Shetty bt Aleksander Lusin (Est) 4-11, 11-9, 5-11, 10-12,11-9,11-7, 11-2  

Women:  Mouma Das w/o Amina Namaganda (Uga), Mouma Das bt Aziza Karieva (Tjk)  11-3, 11-2, 11-2, 11-5.

K.Sahmini bt Krystle (Bar) 11-1, 11-5, 11-2, 11-4, K.Shamini bt Ridhmi Karadanaarachchi (SL) 11-5, 11-4, 11-8, 11-1.

Madhurika Patkar Kaltham Alyassi (Brn) 11-1, 11-4, 11-3, 11-6,  Madhurika Patkar bt Ana Silva (Por) 11-7, 12-10, 12-10, 11-5.

A TTFI Press release