Desai, Manika, Ankita enter Brazil Open semis

New Delhi, August 10, 2013: Indian paddlers are making their presence felt at the ITTF World Tour Brazil Open being played at Santos as Harmeet Desai entered the Semi finals of the men’s singles today. Not to be left behind, both Manika Batra and Ankita Das too made it to the last four in the women’s singles.

Harmeet Desai defeated Brazilian Thiago Monteiro 4-3 (11-6, 8-11, 11-9, 5-11, 9-11, 11-8, 11-9) in a tough battle to grab the semi-final spot but Soumyajit Ghosh failed to seal his spot in the semis when he lost to another Brazilian Hugo Calderano 3-4 (7-11, 11-9, 10-12, 11-7, 8-11, 8-11) despite leading 2-1.

Earlier, both G. Satiyan and Nitin Vasanth Philips had exited in the round of 16, losing to Thiago Monteiro and Cazuo Matsumoto, respectively. Ghosh had beaten hosts paddler Israel Barreto in straight games to move into the quarterfinals along with Desai who had outlasted Brazilian Humberto Manhani 4-3.

Desai had played exceptionally well to win his pre-quarterfinal and quarterfinal matches, both of which went to the wire. The Indian will now take on local challenter Gustavo Tsuboi in the semifinals.

With both Ankita Das and Suthirtha Mukherjee finding themselves drawn in the same half had to run into each other in the quarterfinal in which Ankita emerged the winner with a 4-2 (8-11, 12-10, 11-9, 7-11, 11-3, 11-8) verdict. Manika accounted for Jissica Yamada of Brazil 11-4, 11-7, 9-11, 11-9, 11-5 without much sweat. Suthirtha had earlier eaten Livia Fontana in straight games in the round of 16. Kritiwica Sinha Roy too lost 2-4 to Jessica Yama in a gruelling fight in the pre-quarterfinals.

In the semifinals, Manika will take on Elizabeta Samara of Roumania while Ankita will meet Brazilian Caroline Kumahara.

Meanwhile, both Soumyajit Ghosh and G. Sathiyan have entered the under-21 Boys singles quarterfinals. Ghosh beat Nitin Philips 11-8, 13-11, 11-7, 11-5 and Sathiyan accounted for Harmeet Desai 12-10, 4-11, 15-13, 4-11, 11-7, 11-7. In the semifinal, Ghosh will take on Sathiyan. In the under-21 girls’ singles semifinal, it will be Suthirtha Mukherjee versus Manika Batra.

The winner of the men and women’s singles will get $4000 while the runner up will receive $2000. The losing semifinals will at least go with $500 each. As for the under-21 event, the singles winner will get $1500 while the runner-up $750. The losing semi-finalists will have to be satisfied with the prize purse of $375.

Gold for Indian teams at Guatemala

Indian Cadet Boys’Team and the Cadet Girls’ Team had a complete domination at the the Guatemala Junior and Cadet Open in Guatemala City winning the gold medals. The combination of Birdie Boro and Anirban Ghosh representing India ‘A’ won the Cadet Boys’ Team title, with the trio of Sreeja Akuka, Harsha Vardhini Calange Ravichandran and Sagarika Mukherjee joining forces to secure Cadet Girls’ Team gold. Success for both outfits with victory being hard earned by the boys but secured rather more comfortably by the girls.

Occupying the top seeded place in the draw, they accounted for the Ecuador pairing of Eunice Galvez and Natalie Paredes in the semi-finals 3-0 before recording a similar victory against the India ‘B’ Team comprising Aishwarya Pathak and Moumita Das, who ended up with the silver.

However, for India ‘A’ in the Cadet Boys’ Team event life was more testing, particularly in the final where they took on India ‘B’ Team partnership of Arjun Ghosh and Larlin Puia.

Arjun Ghosh beat both Birdie Boro (11-6, 11-7, 11-8) and Anirban Ghosh (13-11, 9-11, 11-6, 11-9) but that was all India ‘B’ could do. Larlin Puia suffered defeats at the hands of Anirban Ghosh (11-9, 11-5, 11-3) and Birdie Boro (11-6, 6-11, 12-10, 11-8) with the doubles being secured by Anirban Ghosh and Birdie Boro in three straight games (11-5, 11-9, 11-5).

A testing final but en route to the final, Anirban Ghosh and Birdie Boro had experienced few problems; in the latter stages ending the hopes of Argentina in an emphatic manner.

However, for India ‘B’ it was a different story. They experienced few problems in the quarter-finals beating the Peruvian pairing of Juan Liyau and Alexander Rotstan by three matches to nil before finding Cuba most testing opponents in the semi-finals.

The player to cause the problems for the Indians was Livan Martinez. He overcame both Arjun Ghosh (11-8, 9-11, 16-14, 6-11, 11-4) and Lalrin Puia (11-5, 13-15, 6-11, 12-10, 11-4). But Carlos Hernandez could not match the efforts of Livan Martinez.

He was beaten by Lalrin Puia (11-4, 11-3, 11-5) and by Arjun Ghosh (11-9, 11-7, 11-5), with the crucial doubles also going the way of the Indians. Arjun Ghosh and Lalrin Puia recorded a straight games win over Carlos Hernandez and Livan Martinez (11-9, 12-10, 12-10) to secure an all Indian final.

TTFI Press release