Dharamshala, November 25, 2015: After Assam had upset Kerala in
group stages on Tuesday it was Tamil Nadu Youth Girls’ turn to send
second-seeded Maharashtra packing in
pre-quarterfinals of the 77th Junior and Youth National Table Tennis
Championships at the Indoor Stadium here today.
The more humiliating aspect of last year’s finalist was the
way they were blanked out, making a mockery of the second stage draw. In fact,
the Tamil Nadu girls were not in high spirits when they were drawn against Maharashtra . However, the 3-0 triumph over a tough
opponent must have restored the TN team’s confidence.
Selenadeepthi Selvakumar comfortably beat Senhora D’Souza
11-9, 6-11, 11-7, 11-7 to give Tamil Nadu 1-0 lead. Then Amrutha Pushpak, who
struggled in group stage matches, overcame a stiff resistance from Manushree
Patil 13-11, 8-11, 11-8, 15-17, 11-6. Manushree, twice title winner in the
junior section this season, played really well to draw level in the fourth
game, but visibly drained out by the time they were in the decider. Amrutha,
with her experience, outwitted her rival to put TN 2-0 up. Abhinaya Ramesh
accounted for Rutuja Khopkar in straight games of 11-6, 11-7, 12-10 to make it
a simple affair for her team.
Even their second team, Maharashtra B too bowed out, losing
to Telangana 2-3, despite Shruti Amrute winning both her singles against Naina and
Varuni Jaiswal. The two Telangana girls nicely targeted Dyuti Patki in their
singles and the third girl Manasi Chiplunkar was taken care of by Telangana’s
Monica Manohar.
Kushi Viswanath fashioned Karnataka’s quarterfinal entry,
beating Rajasthan’s top girl Priyanka Pareek in the first singles. From there,
it was easy for Karnataka to roll over their rivals 3-0 with Spoorthy and
Samyukta doing their job even as North Bengal
struggled to beat Haryana 3-2.
In Youth Boys pre-quarters, Uttar Pradesh overcame a
determined Gujarat 3-2. Manush Shah, who had
two national ranking titles this season, was the star player for Gujarat but he could not except winning both his singles
as Soham Pandya and Ishaan Hingorani failed to put up a similar show in their
singles. In contrast, all three players—Abhinav Belwal, Sarthak Seth and Arjun
Kohli—won a match each to take the team to the quarters where they will take
on….
The other two interesting matches in the Youth Boys category
were between Tamil Nadu and Mizoram, the former winning 3-2, Anandh Raj Rajan
doing the star turn for the winners. He won both his singles to put the issue
beyond the grasp of Mizoram. In the other match, Dena Bank defeated Telangana
3-1 but the winners took 135 minutes to reach the quarters. Shreyal Telang won
both his matches against Sridhar Harikrishna and Snehit Suravajjula while
Akshay Mahanta beat Saroj Siril. The only blip was Harsh sachnandani who lost
2-3 to Snehit in the first singles.
Results:
Youth Girls (PQF): AAI bt Himachal Pradesh 3-0, West Bengal
bt Gujarat 3-0, Delhi bt Assam 3-0, Telangana bt Maharasshtra B 3-2, North
Bengal bt Haryana 3-2, Uttar Pradesh bt Pondicherry 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt
Maharashtra A 3-0, Karnataka bt Rajasthan 3-0.
Youth Boys (PQF): Maharashtra A bt Bihar 3-0, West Bengal bt
Madhya Pradesh 3-0, Rajasthan bt North Bengal 3-0, Delhi bt Punjab 3-0,
Maharashtra B bt Karnataka 3-1, Uttar Pradesh bt Gujarat 3-2, Tamil Nadu bt
Mizoram 3-2, Dena Bank bt Telangana 3-1.
Meanwhile, the Junior Boys and Junior Girls pre-quarterfinals
have begun and the quarterfinals in all the sections will be played tonight.
TTFI Press release
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