Visakhapatnam: A. Sharath Kamal showed what a classy player that he is as he inched his way into the semifinals of the 11Even Sports National Ranking (South Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium here today.
Brushing aside his disappointment of having to play the qualifiers, the ace paddler defeated West Zone finalist Devesh Karia 4-1 to mark his fresh beginning in the domestic circuit fruitful and worth-a-while.
It was a classy show because Sharath was down 0-2 against the left-hander. With his determination intact, Sharath launched his attack and went about reducing the margin, slowly but surely, to lead 3-2. In the sixth game, some loose shots almost cost him dear but Sharath kept his date with destiny to win the extended game.
He will meet Harmeet Desai in the semifinal tomorrow. Harmeet beat Raj Mondal 4-1. In other quarterfinals, top-seed Sathiyan beat Manav Thakkar 4-2, Jubin Kumar defeated Sushmit Sriram by the same margin.
Meanwhile, Manika Batra, Mouma Das and Divya Deshpande were sent packing by their opponents in the quarterfinals. The toughest of all was the one between Mousumi Paul, finalist at Rajkot, and Mouma Das. The veteran tried her best but in the end Mousumi went through.
Earlier, Manika Batra was ill at ease in the pre-quarterfinals when she met qualifier Senhora D’Souza of Maharashtra but the No. 3 seed managed to win 11-4, 9-11, 11-6, 9-11, 11-3, 11-6. In other matches, Krittwika Sinha Roy defeated eighth seed Pooja Sahasrabuddhe 4-2, Ankita Das beat K. Shamini 4-2, Madhurika Patkar disposed of Poulomi Ghatak 4-1, Mouma Das downed Ayhika Mukherjee 4-1, Mousumi struggled to overcome Priyanka Pareek 4-2, Divya Deshpande rolled past Reeth Rishya 4-0 and top-seed Suthirtha Mukherjee handed out a 4-0 thrashing to Chipia Frenaz.
TOUGH FOR SATHIYAN
In men’s pre-quarters, top-seed G. Sathiyan faced his toughest challenge before staging his recovery to beat Siddesh Pande 4-2 (7-11, 6-11, 11-6, 11-4, 11-6, 11-9). It was a shock of sorts for the top-seeded paddler when Siddhesh outplayed him in the first two games. Even in the sixth, Sathiyan and Siddesh were 9-all but the former prevailed.
Manav Thakkar was extended 4-3 by Nitin Thiruvengadam, AAI’s Sushmit Sriram made a fine comeback in the decider to beat Subhajit Saha 4-3, Haryana’s Jubin Kumar, a semifinalist at Rajkot, beat Sarthak Gandhi 4-2, Harmeet Desai advanced beating Aman Balgu 4-0, Raj Mondal beat Utkarsh Gupta 4-1, Devesh Karia won over Sougata Sarkar 4-0 and A. Sharatah Kamal decimated Nishaad Shah 4-0. Nishaad had beaten No. 2 seed Sanil Shetty in a second-round match yesterday.
In Youth Girls’ main draw, Abhinaya Ramesh beat Kritika Malik 3-1, Monika Manohar overcame Prati Sen 3-2, Anushka Dutta downed Manushree Patil 3-1, local girl Shailu Noorbasha beat Varuni Jaiswal 3-1, Kaushini Nath defeated Tanisi Kirtani 3-1, Seleenadeepthi outlasted Ishita Gupta 3-2 and Chipia Frenaz blanked out Yashini Sivasankar 3-0. Top players in the section were given first-round byes and they will begin their campaign from pre-quarters later tonight.
In Youth Boys, Abhimanyu Mitra, Sherayal Telang, Ali Mohammad and Shreyas Kulkarni entered the pre-quarters where they will be joined by those who received first-round byes to play a round tonight.
Trophies and cash prizes in six sections—Men, Women, Youth Boys and Girls, Junior Boys and Girls—will be decided tomorrow when the finals are slated. From the day after, the qualification matches for Sub-Junior and Cadet Boys and Girls will commence.
Results:
Men: Quarterfinals: G. Sathiyan bt Manav Thakkar 11-6, 11-3, 12-14, 11-5, 10-12, 11-9, Jubin Kumar bt Sushmit Sriram 11-13, 11-4, 11-7, 11-5, 6-11, 12-10, Harmeet Desai bt Raj Mondal 6-11, 11-6, 12-10,11-2, 141-12, Sharath Kamal bt Devesh Karia 9-11, 6-11, 11-9,11-7, 11-6, 13-11,
Women: Quarterfinals: Suthirtha Mukherjee bt Divya Deshpande 11-6, 15-13, 11-8, 4-11, 11-6, Mousumi Paul bt Mouma Das 11-7, 8-11, 8-11, 11-9, 13-11, 7-11, 11-8, Krittwika Sinha Roy bt Manika Batra 7-11, 12-10, 11-7, 8-11, 11-8, 12-10, Ankita Das bt Madhurika Patkar 12-10, 11-2, 11-6, 6-11, 11-8.
