Teams get fair chance and equal opponents

Kolkata, December 24, 2015: There cannot be a better and even second-stage open draw than the one that was taken out teams in the sub-junior girls section of the 77th Cadet and Sub-Junior National Table Tennis Championships held at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here today.

The teams’ group matches getting over as smoothly as possible and with top 16 teams making it to the main draw the open draw always generates curiosity. Generally, some teams may get luckier drawing against weak teams. But it was not the case in the sub-junior girls as, except for the top two seeded teams—No. 1 Karnataka and No. 2 Tamil Nadu—other squads have draw more or less equal opponents in the pre-quarterfinals which start from tomorrow.

Karnataka will play Punjab in the top half and Tamil Nadu will take on Pondicherry in the bottom half. Among the other 10 teams, Telangana will clash with Delhi, Madhya Pradesh is pitted against Uttar Pradesh and Kerala will face Maharashtra A from the top half. As for the bottom half, North Bengal take on Goa, Assam meet West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh clash with Gujarat from the bottom half.

With only two teams becoming eligible to make the second stage grade, some of the group matches in all sections witnessed good matches, particularly for the second place in their groups. The leader in each group, expectedly, asserted their supremacy to go through to the main draw.

As for interesting matches in sub-junior boys, the second round match between Maharashtra B and Telangana went down to the wire and the latter came out 3-2 winners. The Telangana players, despite down 1-2, came back nicely thanks to Mohammad Amaan Rahman who won both his singles to restore parity. However, it was Varun Shankar Balusuri who finished the match by winning his singles against Yash Deshkum 3-2 in a tough decider.

Andhra Pradesh, however, was not lucky as they lost to Kerala 2-3 in a second-round encounter. Sahil Mohammad emerged the star winning his first and reverse singles but while team mate Mohammad Inush managed to win his reverse singles only. The pair lost their doubles rubber to P. Jaya Surya and G. Pavan Teja as the Andhra boys won it 3-2. Earlier, Jaya Surya beat Inush 3-0 in the singles.

In sub-junior girls, the second round match between Assam and Karnataka not only went the full distance but took almost two and a half hour to get over. The match saw 20 out of a possible 25 games, thanks to a fine performance by Grisha Gogoi. But in the end it was Karnataka who emerged 3-2 winners with both Anargya Manjunath and Aditi Nandi sharing the burden equally.

Andhra girls too struggled before overcoming a determined Uttar Pradesh 3-2 in the first round. Suhana Narjimary put UP ahead but Kajol Ramjali defeaed Radhapriya Goel to level the score. Then the next two rubbers, including doubles, were share in that order before Mahita Chowdary doing her important bit to win the match against Radhapriya 3-1 which eventually decided the fate of UP.

In Cadet Boys, Mizoram were stretched to five rubbers by Chhattisgarh in their second round group match. It was creditable on the part of Chhattisgarh to put up a fantastic fight against strong and defensive Mizoram boys. Aayush Sharma not only won his second singles but also partnered Ashish Singh Yadav to win doubles. But Aayush lost his reverse singles to Thangsiansanga 1-3 which proved costly for his team.

Nevertheless, there was an upset when PSPBA boys went 2-3 down to Manipur in the first round last night. It was an-edge-of-the-seat group A match in which the Manipuri boys came from nowhere—they were trailing 0-2—to beat the PSPBA boys. The winners’ real hope was kindled by the doubles win by Roddy Heigrujam and Samsung Meitei who beat Juba and Khelengrajit Yengkhom 11-7, 5-11, 11-5, 11-9. The turnaround happened there as Roddy beat Khelengrajit 3-2 in the fourth rubber and then Bairal Athokpam accounted for Aaradhya Sharma in straight games.

The Cadet Girls second round too witnessed at least four difficult yet interesting matches. Chhattisgarh defeated Mizoram 3-2 in group E, Madhya Pradesh overcame Uttarakhand 3-2 in Group F, Telangana beat a tough UP 3-2 in group G and Maharashtra B surmounted resilient Chandigarh 3-2 in group H.

In the final analysis the early group matches may or may not make much of difference to the top teams but if and when there is a three-way tie happens, some teams’ fortunes of could alter dramatically.  

TTFI Press release