Saturday, August 1, 2015

Sathiyan, Mouma are top seeds in singles

New Delhi, July 31, 2015: Soumyajit Ghosh, current national champion and favourite to win the men’s singles crown, is seeded second behind G. Sathiyan in the ongoing RSPB-hosted 45th All India International Table Tennis Championships at the Thyagraj Stadium here.

Ghosh, who missed a few zonal events last year, could muster only 320 points, which includes the 180 points he collected at the Pondicherry Nationals. But Sathiyan, who had a roaring season last year, including three zonal titles and the runner-up finish at the nationals, garnered 480 points to earn the top-seed position here.
But both Sathiyan and Ghosh, along with six other seeds, have been given first-round byes and they will be seen in action from the second round, slated for later today. Meanwhile, 48 qualifiers from as many groups have made it to the main draw, which includes former national champion Anthony Amalraj.

Interestingly, the Lucknow nationals champion Amalraj had to play the qualifiers as he had skipped most of last season, owing his commitment with a club in Poland, and was ranked 37—way behind several junior players. He had just 20 points in his kitty for his token appearance in the team event of last edition’s Inter-Institutional Championships here in New Delhi.

Devesh Karia, who had a fine season in 2014 with two singles crown, is seeded after Ghosh at No. 3 while Abhishek Yadav is seeded No. 4. They are followed in seeding by Lalrin Puia, Sanil Shetty, Subhajit Saha and Raj Mondal, in that order.

With 24 group leaders joining the top eight seeds, the main draw of the women’s singles will be of 32 players. But they will play their first round only tomorrow.

As for women’s singles seeding, national champion Mouma Das is No. 1 with Pooja Sahasrabudhe, who was a semifinalist at Pondicherry, is seeded second. Runner-up Poulami Ghatak, who had sent in her entry, withdrew later. She is said to be on family way. The other players seeded behind Pooja include Ankita Das, Manika Batra, Krittwika Sinha Roy, Reeth Rishya and Madhurika Patkar.

PSPB pairs in final
Petroleum Sports Promotion Board’s two top pairs Sanil Shetty and Manika Batra as well as Jubin Kumar and Neha Aggarwal have reached the mixed doubles final, which will be played tomorrow. In the first semifinal today, Sanil and Manika defeated easily the FCI’s duo of Arjun Ghosh and Sagarika Mukherjee 11-5, 12-10, 13-11, while it was a struggle for the Jubin-Neha pair which had to overcome their sturdy opponents in Air India’s Chinmay Datar and Devika Bhide.

The Air India pair showed gumption and, despite trailing 0-2, made a fine comeback to level the score. However, in the decider both Chinmay and Devika were guilty of missing big, crucial points which did not help their cause as the PSPB duo won 11-9, 11-4, 8-11, 8-11, 11-8 to earn the final berth.
AI’s duo upset

But for Air India’s Mallika Bhandarkar and Vedika Garg receiving a jolt from FCI’s Sagarika Mukherjee and Charvi Kawle, other fancied women’s doubles teams entered the quarterfinals with emphatic wins over their rivals. The FCI’s inexperienced duo made it a totally one-sided affair with 11-8, 11-8, 11-9 triumph to meet the top pair of Mouma Das and K. Shamini in the last-eight stage. The PSPB women blanked out RBI’s Shruti Talnikar and Kakoli Lahkar 3-0.


In other results, AAI’s Maria Rony and Seraha Jacob beat IA&AD’s Pooja Sharma and Kumaravel 3-0,  RSPB’s Anindita Chakraborty and Pallabi Kundu combined todown CRSB’s Vidya Narasimhan and Praneetha Challa 3-0, PSPB’s Reeth Rishya and Senhora D’Souza beat FCI’s Nadia Saini and Garima Goyal 3-0, AAI’s Nikhat Banu and Frenaz Chipa accounted for Air India’s second pair, Shruti Amrute and Devika Bhide 3-0, RSPB’s Takeme Sarkar and Rupsa Bhattacharya overcame IA&AD’s Sayantika Kundu and Sanya Sehgal 3-1 and RBI’s Krittwika Sinha Roy and Shweta Parte beat Ministry of Communications & IT’s Divyaba Gohil and Prasunna Parekh 3-1.

TTFI Press relase

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