Jaipur: The Petroleum Sports Promotion Board’s pair of G. Sathiyan and Ankita Das will take on Airports Authority of India’s Ronit Bhanja and Ayhika Mukhrjee in the mixed doubles final of the AAI 46th All India Inter-Institutional Championships at the SMS Indoor Stadium here on Thursday.
In the first semifinal, the experienced Ronit and Ayhika defeated teammates Sarthak Gandhi and Sreeja Akula 3-1 while in the second,
Both Ronit and Ayhika combined really well and it was evident in the way they led 2-0 before Sarthak and Sreeja managed to win their third game. But the two could not press the advantage home as the former completed the job in double quick time to seal their final place.
In the second, it was a tough outing for both the PSPB pairs. After the two pairs had levelled the score, the third game became even more intense. However, Sathiyan and Ankita won on their second match point after surviving some real threat from Sanil Shetty and Divya Deshpandey as the game went into a couple of deuces. In the next, it was business as usual for Sathiyan and Ankita who shut out their rival’s challenge quite early to go through.
Earlier in the day, two former national champions, Poulami Ghatak and Ankita Das, were stretched before taking their allotted places in the main draw of the women’s singles. From the 32-group qualifying phase, played on a league basis, all the favourites advanced to the knockout stage where they will be joined by the top-eight ranked players.
Poulami, playing in group 22, were taken to five games by Maharashtra’s Manushree Patil in the match to decider the qualifier. The former national champion prevailed over her rival 11-13, 11-4, 11-7, 8-11, 11-3. Earlier Ankita needed four games to beat local girl, Bhuvaneshwari Rathore, 8-11, 11-5, 11-5, 11-5.
Comeback girl Mallika Bhandarkar required deciding games in two of her three league matches against Kritika Singh of Deli and Chhavi Singh of Rajasthan. Mallika trailed by 1-2 before proving her superiority.
Now the big task before them is how to overcome one round of main draw later tonight where the battle is expected to be tough as they will run into equal opponents, if not better. In fact, they should be prepared for the worse with seeded players lurking around the corner.
The men’s singles group matches threw up 48 qualifiers who will join the top-eight ranked in the main draw, the first round matches of which will follow the women’s singles tonight.
Meanwhile, the eight seeds in the men’s and women’s sections, based on performances and points accumulated in both national and North Zone championships, were announced today.
Results:
Mixed Doubles (Semifinals): Ronit Bhanja/Ayhika Mukhrjee (AAI) beat Sarthak Gandh/Sreeja Akula (AAI) 3-1 (11-4, 11-6, 8-11, 11-4); G. Sathyan/Ankita Das (PSPB) beat Sanil Shetty/Divya Deshpande (PSPB) 3-1 (11-8, 9-11, 13-11, 11-6).
Seeding: Men: 1. Anthony Amalraj, 2. G. Sathiyan, 3. Sanil Shetty, 4. Harmeet Desai, 5. Jubin Kumar, 6. A. Sharath Kamal, 7. Subhajit Saha and 8. Soumyajit Ghosh
Seeding: Women: 1. Madhurika Patkar, 2. Manika Batra, 3. Reeth Rishya, 4. Pooja Sahasrabuddhe, 5. Mouma Das, 6. K. Shamini, 7. Shruti Amrute and 8. Krittwika Sinha Roy.
