Tough for Telangana, AP women; Maharashtra make a scene

Hyderabad, January 5, 2016: There is nothing called an easy or a tough draw when there are 16 top teams that make the cut for the team events’ pre-quarterfinals of a national event.

Following the group qualification matches in the 77th Senior National and Inter-State Table Tennis Championships at the Kotla Vijay Bhaskara Reddy Indoor Stadium here this evening, some teams got reasonably lucky while others somewhat uneasy. Yet, the gritty teams always ignore caginess and move ahead.

And that’s what the Telangana women will have to do tomorrow after their evening was spoilt when they drew North Bengal to play the pre-quarterfinals. No doubt, it is going to be a tough ask for the hosts against an experienced line-up that has Sagarika Mukherjee, Sukanya Bose, Takeme Sarkar and Anuska Dutta. The foursome is good enough to steamroll the best in business, unless, of course, Nikhat Banu with three juniors—Varuni Jaiswal, Sreeja Akula and Naina—for company manage to outwit them.

So was the case with Andhra Pradesh, who drew title-holders and top-seed PSPB, Madhya Pradesh drew a tough Maharashtra B and Odisha found pitted against RBI in the top half. As for the bottom half, Pondicherry will run into Maharashtra A, Delhi will face Tamil Nadu, Karnataka will take on Rajasthan and Gujarat the second-seeded West Bengal.

In men’s draw, two Maharashtra teams and two Bengal teams were drawn against each other in the bottom half with one set of team making a hue cry. In open draws, these things do happen but Maharashtra A team coach Mahendra Chiplunkar almost created a scene and refused to sign the draw sheet. However, the Bengal teams were modest enough to accept their fate. In other bottom half pairings, Haryana will play Mizoram, Punjab will meet Tamil Nadu.

In the top-half pre-quarterfinals draw, PSPB will meet Andhra Pradesh, Delhi will take on Rajasthan, RSPB will meet UP and Telangana will face Gujarat. 

TTFI Press release