Jamnagar: West Bengal’s Ronit Bhanja and Mahrashtra’s Shruti Amrute have been accorded the No. 1 seeding in the Junior Boys and Junior Girls sections’ main draw of the JMC National Ranking (Central Zone) Table Tennis Championships, being held here at the JMC Indoor Stadium.
Following the group matches in the Junior Boys category, 32 group leaders made the main draw cut where they joined eight top-ranked paddlers to make it a draw of 64. This also meant a liberal 24 byes accorded to players. Some qualifiers too benefited from the exception as they will all skip the first round matches.
With two rounds scheduled for the day, even the top eight seeded players will be seen in action later tonight. In other words, it will be a testing time for the qualifiers, including those who got first-round byes, whether they sink or shape up to live another day.
However, the Junior Girls main draw was straight and simple with just 24 group leaders joining the top-eight players who all. They all play their first-round matches tonight.
Following Ronit Bhanja is Siddhesh Pande from Maharashtra at No. 2 position in the seeding while Ananth Devarajan from Tamil Nadu is placed at No. 3 slot with Sarthak Seth of Uttar Pradesh following him at No. 4.
The other seeds are Shaurya Pednekar (Maharashtra), Anirban Ghosh (West Bengal) Ali Mohammad (Telangana) and Shreyas Kulkarni (Karnataka) who follow the UP boy.
From the draw, it seems a fare one with all the seeded Junior Boys are expected to sail through to the quarterfinals without much of a problem. Unless, of course, they put up rank bad shows in the second round.
Unlike them, the Junior Girls who start from round one do not have a escape route as they have to keep their seeding intact and progress.
Shruti Amrute, who wore the Sub-Junior Girls crown, beating R. Harshavardhini of Tamil Nadu in the South Zone championships at Chennai in September, faces Shrubabati Moitra who yesterday lost in the semifinals of the Sub-Junior Girls, in her first round encounter. With her experience, Shruti should move into the next round without much trouble.
Similarly, No. 2 seed Harshavardhini has an easy opening against qualifier Puja Paul. Shallu Noorbasha from Andhra Pradesh is seeded No. 3 and she is followed by Tami Nadu’s Seelena Deepthi. The AAI girl, Sreeja Akula is at No. five while two Tamil Nadu girls Yashini Sivashankar and Abinaya Ramesh are placed at No. 6 and 8. The seventh spot has gone to Goa’s Tanisi Kirtani. But, in no way, the draw is easy for these seeded players as they run into very tough opponents in the first round itself.
Meanwhile, the men’s and women’s qualifiers will have to play two rounds with the main draw scheduled for tomorrow. However, the Youth Boys and Youth Girls qualification rounds are slated to begin tomorrow.
