Rajahmundry: The Petroleum Sports Promotion Board Academy’s Manav Thakkar and Karnataka’s Archana Girish Kamath lead the ranking lists in Sub-Junior Boys’ and Girls’ sections, respectively, as the individual events got underway in the 76th Cadet and Sub-Junior National Table Tennis Championships at the Cherukuri Convention Centre here today.
Manav leads the chart with 360 points, having been the most accomplished player with four title wins in the National Ranking Championships during the season. Similarly, Archana has accumulated 240 points for her two title triumphs and one runner-up finish. The Karnataka girl had to skip one national ranking event as she was representing Asia in the World Cadet Challenge in Barbados. Yet, her point position was such that the second ranked player, Payal Bohra of Maharashtra was 60 points behind. The Maharashtra girl had just one title from the Central Zone event held at Indore.
Behind Manav in the ranking chart was Manush Shah of Gujarat followed by PSPB’s Anukram Jain, Sarthak Seth (UP), Ashwin Subramanian (Maharashtra B), Parth Virmani (Delhi), Shaurya Pednekar (Mahrashtra B) and Snehit Suravajjulu (Telangana).
In Sub-Junior Girls, Shrushti Haleangadi (Maharashtra), Selenadeepthi Selvakumar (TN), Yashini Sivashankar (TN), Kushi Viswanath (Karnataka), Priyanka Pareek (Rajasthan and Surbhi Patwari (West Bengal) are behind both leader Archana and Payal to complete the top-eight ranked players.
With 56 and 52 groups in Sub-Junior Boys and Sub-Junior Girls, all these top eight ranked players will be getting their first round byes when the second stage matches begin tomorrow after the completion of qualification matches tonight.
Both the Cadet Boys and Cadet Girls categories have 44 groups each and, like in the sub-junior sections, only one player from each group will make it to the main draw.
Meanwhile, the doubles, which will be knockout events, will be played tomorrow in both sub-junior sections.
Ranking points:
Sub-Junior Boys: Manav Thakkar (360), Manush Shah (150), Anukram Jain (135), Sarthak Seth (130), Ashwin Subramanian (120), Parth Virmani (105), Shaurya Pedneker (90), and Snehit Suravajjula (85).
Sub-Junior Girls: Archana Kamath (240), Payal Bohra (180), Srushti Haleangadi (180), Selenadeepthi Selvakumar (135), Yanishi Sivashankar (135), Kushi Viswanath (120), Priyanka Pareek (120) and Surbhi Patwari (120).