Haryana men, Railway women annex doubles crown

 Anindita Chakraborty and Pallabi Kundu of Railways with women's doubles trophy

Men’s pair of Jubin Kumar and Sourav Chakraborty of Haryana with their doubles trophy 

Patna, January 11, 2014: The men’s pair of Jubin Kumar and Sourav Chakraborty did Haryana proud when it snatched victory from the jaws of defeat to annex the doubles title in the 75th Senior National Table Tennis Championships at the Patliputra Sports Complex here today.

The duo beat Rajasthan’s Vivek Bhargava and Sudhanshu Grover 3-2 to win a major national title for Haryana.  The women’s double crown went to Railways’ pair of Anindita Chakraborty and Pallabi Kundu, who beat Airports Authority of India’s Nikhat Banu and Krittwika Sinha Roy 3-1.

The Haryana duo was on the verge of defeat with Grover and Bharagava on championship point at 10-9. But Grover, in his anxiety, received the ball at an awkward angle from left-hander Jubin only to send it out, giving a lease of life to Haryana. Earlier, Rajasthan combine led 9-6 only let the Haryana players come back.

At 10-10 it was anybody’s match when both the pairs picked a point each to be at 11-all. When the service returned to Rajasthan, Chakraborty returned well, to earn the crucial point. Then it was left to Jubin finish off the job on his serve and Grover, yet again, sent a long ball for Haryana to celebrate.

Title for Railways

The experienced Railways duo simply outwitted the AAI combine. The pair was slow to take off, particularly after losing the first game. But the two veterans came to grip with their combination play which confused the AAI duo of Nikhat and Krittiwika. However hard the two tried, they were unable to come out of the mire in spite of stretching the RSPB pair in the third game to 10-12. With a comfortable 2-1 lead, Anindita and Pallabi just completed the demolition job in the next in less than 5 minutes.

Former champion Anthony Amal Raj was the biggest seed to fall in the morning session as he bowed out to unseeded Sudhanshu Grover 3-4 in the pre-quarterfinals. But there were quite a few prominent players like Subhajit Saha from North Bengal, Maharashtra A’s Aman Balgu, Gujarat’s Jignesh Jaiswal, Railways’ Souvik Kar, Haryana’s Sarthak Gandhi from the bottom half and both Devesh Karia (Gujarat) and Souav Chakraborty (Haryana) from the top half made their exit in the round of 32.

Promising Mizo boy Lalrin Puia and PSPB Academy’s Abhishek Yadav also failed to survive but had played too well in earlier rounds to enter the pre-quarterfinals. Puia lost to top-seed Sharath Kamal and Abhishek Yadav to Harmeet Desai, both going down by the same 0-4 margin.   

Coming back to Amal Raj’s game, it was difficult to say whether the No. 2 seed played too badly or Grover pulled it off with his perseverance. In fact, it was a combination of both as Amal Raj was definitely struggling against another offensive player like him. Grover seized on the momentum to put the issue beyond Amal Raj (8-11, 11-2, 7-11, 11-6, 5-11, 11-8, 11-2).

Amal Raj started on a rousing note winning the first game and going up 2-1 before Grover hitting him back with superb attacking game on both flanks to unsettle his opponent. Once Gover made it 2-2 Amal Raj cleaned him up 11-5 with an excellent fast game which saw fewer rallies. Amal Raj was back in his groove with superb backhand flicks and close to the table play which brooked little challenge from Grover.

But the Rajasthan player surprised everyone, including Amal Raj, to take the next game at 11-8. Probably, this rattled Amal Raj who was found wanting in his strokes and made several unforced errors. This only helped Grover’s cause as he kept growing in confidence to stop the frustrating former champion very early in the decider. Grover will now take on Soumyadeep Roy in the quarterfinals to be played later tonight.

In women’s singles all top four seeds entered the pre-quarterfinals but both No. 2 seed Pooja Sahasrabudhe and No. 4 Ankita Das went through some rough weathers before making the cut. Pooja struggled before overcoming Andra Pradesh’s Nikhat Banu 4-2 (11-2, 9-11, 11-7, 6-11, 13-11, 11-3) and Ankita Das struggled against Suthirtha Mukherjee. Ankita won 4-2 (13-11, 8-11, 7-11, 13-11, 11-7, 11-7).

Results (Doubles Finals):

Men: Jubin Kumar/Sourav Chakraborty (Har) bt Vivek Bhargava/Sudhanshu Grover 3-2 (11-8, 7-11, 11-8, 7-11, 13-11).

Women: Anindita Chakraborty/Pallabi Kundu (RSPB) bt Nikhat Bhanu/Krittwika Sinha Roy (AAI) 3-1 (9-11, 11-6, 12-10, 11-5).

TTFI release