Indore: Ananth Devarajan, celebrating his singles entry in the forthcoming World Junior Championships at Cape Town, South Africa, topped his group to enter the men’s singles main draw in the 11Even Sports National Ranking (Central Zone) Table Tennis Championships starts at the Abhay Prashal here today.
Drawn in group 23, he blanked out Delhi’s Sameer Sahni 12-10, 13-11, 9-11, 11-5. Ananth and Sameer having won against Saiel Wadwekar fromMadhya Pradesh, it was imperative for them to win the crucial match between the two. Ananth emerged triumphant with an emphatic 3-0 win. Earlier, Sameer struggled against local boy Saiel before winning 11-9, 9-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-5.
In group 24, Sanish Ambekar from Maharashtra pitch-forked himself to the top spot from original third position in the group with two wins over rivals Mohit Verma of Haryana and Subendhu Show from West Bengal. For Sanish, it was rather easy against the West Bengla paddler but Mohit from Haryana gave some anxious moments as he managed to take a game off Sanish who won 11-9, 11-6, 9-11, 11-5. But Airports Authority of India’s Anirban Ghosh failed to qualify from group 31 when he lost his third-round match against Arnab Sarkar 9-11, 11-6, 7-11, 10-12, giving a clear main draw passage to the West Bengal player.
Manush Shah from Guajrat, placed in a four-man group 37, emerged on top with three fine wins, his notable 3-0 triumph coming against Akash Nath of West Bengal which paved his way into the second stage. Zubin Taraporwalla from Maharashtra, too, qualified with an all-win record in group 40. Other group qualifiers included Ayush Tayal from Haryana, Shreyas Telang from Karnataka, E. Prabhakaran from RSPB and Asif Haque from RBI. But for these players, all original group toppers had made it to the main draw.
In women’s singles, RBI’s Sweta Parte exited without making an impression, thanks to Railways Ashlesha Trehan who pushed her way into the main draw with a fine 3-0 win. She had earlier beaten Kefira Rodrigues of Goa 3-0. Manushree Patil from Maharashtra beat two of her group rivals in Shreya Ghosh (RSPB) and Assam’s Adrija Sharma to enter the women’s singles stage 2. But for these surprises, all top players expectedly went through the motion to qualify.
With 24 joining qualifiers joining the eight top-ranked players in Junior Girls, Maharashtra led by example with six of their players joining fourth-seeded Shruti Amrute, who got a direct main draw entry, to swell their number to seven in a field of 32 in the knockout stage. In comparison, North Bengal and Delhi have four paddlers making the necessary cut and leaving other states way behind.
The biggest surprise is that Rajasthan’s Priyanka Pareek has been seeded No. 1 for the first time, thanks to her nail-biting title-winning performance in the North Zone at Chandigarh. Priyanka beat West Bengal’s Prapti Sen 4-3 in the Junior Girls final.
In the first round match later today, the left-hander takes on qualifier Priyanka Sarkar from North Bengal. Tamil Nadu’s Selenadeepthi Selvakumar and Abinaya Ramesh are behind the Rajathan girl at No. 2 and 3, while Shruti Amrute is followed by another Tamil Nadu girl, Yashini Sivashankar at No. 5. Manushree Patil, the winner of West Zone title last season, is at No. 6 with Varuni Jaiswal (Telangana) and Kushi Viswanath (Karnataka) following the Maharashtra girl, in that order.
Both Manushree Patil and Priyanka also qualified for the women’s singles main draw which showed that they are slowly but surely making inroads into untried territories.
Manav Thakkar has rightfully occupied the No. 1 spot in seeding in the Junior Boys with West Bengal’s Jeet Chandra behind him at No. 2 and they are followed by UP’s Sarthak Seth and Gujarat’s Manush Shah at No. 3 and 4 respectively.
All the eight seeded players and a few lucky ones have been given first-round bye with only 16 players play first-round matches. Of the eight, the best turned out to be the one between Tamil Nadu’s R. Santosh Kumar and Rohan Jamadagni from Karnataka. The Tamil Nadu paddler won 3-2 after some struggle to enter the second round.
Results (Main Draw):
Junior Boys: Round of 64: Jayabrata Bhattgcharjee (NB) bt Tejas Kamble (Mah) 5-11, 14-12, 11-9, 11-8, Hardikar Mandar (Mah) bt Ayan Pal (WB) 4-11, 11-7, 13-11, 11-13, 11-9, Harsh Shristava (PSPBA) bt Abhirup P Roy (NB) 9-11, 11-6, 8-11, 11-8, 11-7, H. Jeho (PSPBA) bt Samrat Chakraborty (NB) 7-11, 11-8, 11-6, 11-4, Anukram Jain (PSPBA) bt Sai Tejesh (Telg) 11-5, 11-8, 11-6, Snehit Suravajjula (Telg) bt C. Kapil Somaiya (PSPBA) 17-15, 11-7, 13-11, Harshvardhan Lahoti (Telg) bt Ajaysingh Patil (Mah) 11-8, 6-11, 11-4, 11-2, Santosh Kumar. R (TN) bt rohan Jamadagni (KNT) 7-11, 11-3, 9-11, 11-8, 11-7.
