Returning to the arena after a year’s suspension—she was
banned for misrepresenting her age—Moumita had been in good form from season
opener at Chennai (South Zone). But today she blossomed to not only reach the
final but also annex the title in a somewhat one-sided final.
Priyanka, who had also entered her maiden final, could not
match Moumita’s guile as the former failed to adapt herself to the game plan of
the West Bengal girl, who was clever in mixing
her strokes. It did not suit the normally fast player like Priyanka as the
southpaw struggle from game one. She was making far too many mistakes and was
struggling to return. Priyanka was also guilty of not playing her original
attacking game.
On the other hand, Moumita went 2-0 up before losing a game
to her rival. But that was all Priyanka could do as the West
Bengal paddler did well to pull the shutters down early. Priyanka,
somehow, failed to repeat her semifinal form.
Intensity intact
In the semifinals held this afternoon, both the Junior Girls
semifinals turned out to intensely fought matches. In the first, Moumita Datta
had to face some nervous moments throughout against Maharashtra ’s
Srushti Haleangadi before emerging 4-3 triumphant, the match going the full
distance of seven games.
After Srushti made it 3-3, it was anybody’s match from there
onwards. However, the West Bengal girl had a
firm grip with a sizeable lead of 6-3 and that was when Srushti replied in
strong terms to bring down the lead to 6-7. But then some poor returns and
netting saw Moumita go up 9-7 and from there it was difficult for the Maharashtra girl to come back. She hit once outside and
netted the next to put Moumita in the driver’s seat.
In the second too saw one game less played but was in no way
less severe in intensity with Priyanka Pareek overwhelming West
Bengal counterpart Kaushani Nath 4-2. Priyanka was comfortably
placed with a 3-1 lead and her West Bengal
rival just about managed to take one more game before the Rajasthan left-hander
finished it off to enter her first final. She had reached the Youth Girls
semifinals, her best performance ever, at the Central Zone at Jamnagar . However, in the Junior Girls this
remains her best to this date.
In the morning session, there were two tough quarterfinal
matches, one of which saw No. 2 seed Varuni Jaiswal of Telangana biting the
dust, going down to Priyanka Pareek 4-2. Varuni had won the West Zone title at
Thane.
The Rajasthan southpaw, a much improved paddler, played
superbly against the much acclaimed rival in the see-saw battle, two games of
which went into extra points and won by Priyanka. In the other match, Srushti
Haleangadi had to bring out her best to get the better off Yashini Sivakumar
from Tamil Nadu. Both played really well that it was difficult to separate the
winner until the decider which Shrushti won with some ease.
It was disappointing to see Archana Kamath lacking in
confidence and it was evident against her West Bengal
opponent Moumita Datta as the AAI girl went down 0-4 without much of a fight.
No doubt, Moumita is a good player, but Archana was going through a bad patch
ever since she returned from a global tour, from Croatia
to Japan .
Another West Bengal paddler Kaushani Nath
simply ran through Tamil Nadu’s Abhinaya Ramesh to enter the semifinals.
RESULTS:
Junior Girls: Final: Moumita Datta (WB) bt Priyanka
Pareek (Raj) 4-1 (11-5, 11-9, 5-11, 11-7, 11-6); Semifinals: Moumita Datta
bt Srushhti Haleangadi (Mah) 9-11, 11-4, 11-9, 5-11, 11-9, 4-11, 11-7, Priyanka
Pareek bt Kaushani Nath (WB) 11-6, 11-6, 9-11, 11-6, 3-11,
11-4; Quarterfinals: Srushti Haleangadi bt Yashini Sivakumar (TN) 11-9,
7-11, 5-11, 11-7, 12-10, 6-11, 11-8, Moumita Dutta bt Archana Kamath (AAI)
11-5, 11-8, 11-7, 11-5, Kaushani Nath bt Abhinaya Ramesh (TN) 11-8, 11-7, 11-8,
11-6, Priyanka Pareek bt Varuni Jaiswal (Telg) 7-11, 12-10, 11-5, 5-11, 11-9,
12-10.
TTFI Press release
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