Rajasthan boys continue their winning ways in doubles, too

Dharamshala, November 27, 2015: After their wonder title-winning performance, Rajasthan’s doubles pair Abhishek Yadav and Sudhanshu Grover entered the  pre-quarterfinals in the 77th Junior and Youth National Table Tennis Championships at the Indoor Stadium here today.

The top-seeded pair struggled before defeating Goa’s Do Rossario Weseley and Kewal Tamhankar 7-11, 9-11, 11-6, 11-6, 11-2 and the duo is slated to meet Maharashtra’s B Mandar Hadikar and Arbaz Shaikh in the next round. The Goan pair had beaten Odisha’s Sudeep Behera and Janmajay Moharana in straight games of 11-6, 11-7, 11-5.

There was no problem even for the other seeded pairs, including No. 2 pair of Ravindra Kotiyar and Sanish Ambekar of Maharashtra A, third seeds Vivek Bhargava and Pankaj Vishwakarma, also of Rajasthan, and fourth seeded West Bengal duo Arjun Ghosh and Anirban Ghosh.

Kotiyan and Ambekar defeated Mizoram’s Lalrustsanga and Lalruatpuia 3-0, while the Rajasthan pair won against the Assamese pair of Aditya Dey and Zeedan Gogoi 11-6, 11-6, 11-8 and the West Bengal duo won over HP’s Ankit Jaglan and Mehul Sharma 3-1. It was surprising that the Himachal pair managed to take a game off the renowned West Bengal duo. Similarly, all the other seeded combinations had no problem in entering the pre-quarterfinals.

Only the Youth Boys pre-quarters and quarterfinals are slated for tomorrow with the final to be played the following day while all the other doubles events will be held on the last day of the championships.

In Youth Girls doubles, the top pair of Manika Batra and Aanchal Malhotra of Delhi crossed the second round easily, beating Andhra Pradesh’s Kajol Ramjali and Mah Suryadevra 3-1, AAI’s second-seeded pair of Ayhika Mukherjee and Frenaz Chipa moved into the pre-quarters beating Punjab’s Yashi Sharma and Aarushi Arora 3-1, Tamil Nadu’s Amrutha Pushpak and Seelanadeepthi Selvakumar, who are seeded No. 3, defeated Haryana’s Trisha Paul and Parineeta Saini 3-0 and fourth seeded Archana Kamath and Sreeja Akula, both representing AAI, accounted for Goa’s Tanisi Kirtani and Kefira Rodrigues 3-0.

In the Junior Boys and Junior Girls, too, the top pairs had easy outings against their opponents to sail into the pre-quarterfinals.

As for the singles events in all categories, the group qualification matches have begun with players having to complete three rounds each in all groups in what has turned out to be a crowded schedule. They will be joining the top ranked eight players who have been directly given entry in the main draw.

The main draw matches of the singles will begin tomorrow.

TTFI Press release