Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Heat on sub-junior boys; seeds get no byes!

Kolkata, December 27, 2015: With days truncated, schedule squeezed and the number of entries showing a quantum jump, the top-eight seeded players in the Sub-Junior Boys will, for the first time in any national championships, have not been accorded any byes in the 77th Cadet and Sub-Junior National Table Tennis Championships being played at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here today.

The normal luxury of first-round byes has been deprived to them, thanks to 56 boys from as many groups qualifying to make the cut in main draw which began this afternoon. It will be a very hectic schedule for the players in the all four sections as they have to play two rounds of main draw events each with five rounds to follow tomorrow, depending on how a player progressed.

In Sub-Junior Boys, there is a large presence of PSPBA players with four figuring among the top eight. But Gujarat’s Manush Shah has been given the pride of place as the No. 1 seed, having maintained his ranking intact. But among qualifiers entering the second stage, Maharashtra led with eight players making the cut, followed by Tamil Nadu, who had six qualifying and hosts West Bengal five.

However, the seeded players in Sub-Junior Girls, Cadet Boys and Cadet Girls received the benefit of first-round byes because of the lesser number of groups. From group qualifiers, five girls from Tamil Nadu, there each from Maharashtra and West Bengal moved into the knockout stage.

This somehow filled up the gap as the hosts had only three players—Prapti Sen, Rudhra Narayan Ghosh and Prithoki Chakraborty—directly seeded in all but the Sub-Junior Boys category.
Maharashtra’s Manushree Patil and Prapti Sen has won two national ranking titles each but Manushree having garnered more points has been seeded at No. 1 ahead of Prapti, who follows here immediately. In fact, there are three Maharashtra players, including Manushree, as Swastika Ghosh and Diya Chitale are figuring in the seeding list.

With Tamil Nadu dominating the Cadet events in recent time, one could see on an average three players coming into the top-eight bracket. That became pretty much evident when seeding list was released just before the main draw matches were to start today.

Vishwa Deenadayalan, who is top-seeded in Cadet Boys, is followed by state mates Anuj Mahipal and Surfeshraj at No. 7 and No. 8. Similarly, in Cadet Girls Kavyasree Baskar, who is No. 1 seed, has for company from Tamil Nadu Nehal Suriya Narayanan (No. 5), Sathvika Venkata Chalapathi (TN).
    
In Cadet Boys, four West Bengal qualified while Maharashtra sent seven and Tamil Nadu just two to lend strength to the main draw while in Cadet Girls, West Bengal’s four girls made it to the main draw even as Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra had only three each. Delhi was another state that had a presence of 15 of their players from all sections qualifying for the second stage.

Seeding List (1-8):
Sub-Junior Boys: Manush Shah (Guj), Anukram Jain, Alberto Lrrutta, H.Jeho (all PSPBA), Shivjit Singh Lamba (Del), Wesley D Rozario (Goa), Jayabrata Bhattacharya (NB), Harsh Srivastava (PSPBA).
Sub-Junior Girls: Manushree Patil (Mah), Prapti Sen (WB), Swastika Ghosh (Mah), Ishita Gupta (Del), Nikita Sarkar (NB), Tanishi Kirtani (Goa), Diya Chitale (Mah), Anusha Kutumbale (MP).

Cadet Boys: Vishwa Deenadayalan (TN), Payas Jain (Del), Divyas Srivastava (UP), Varun Ganesh (TN), Soumyadeep Sarkar (NB) Rudhra Narayan Ghosh (WB), Anuj Mahipal (TN), Suresh Raj Preyesh (TN).
Cadet Girls: Kavyasree Baskar (TN), Lakshita Narang (Del), Anargya Manjunath (KNT), Suhana Saini (Har), Nehal Suriya Narayanan (TN), Prithoki Chakraborty (WB), Kheya Shah (Mah), Sathvika Venkata Chalapathi (TN).

TTFI Press release


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