Panchkula: Mudit Dani, a TTFI wildcard, became the first player to secure a place in the main draw of the UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships in the North Zone at the Tau Devi Lal Multipurpose Indoor Stadium here today.
The opening day action involved two rounds of matches with winners in both the men and women’s sections getting closer to their targets. However, the fate of 64 individuals in the men’s category and 40 group leaders in the women’s section hinges on how well they can fare in the crucial third round tomorrow.
The Mumbai lad, who is ranked No. 200 in the world, may have got a bit luckier when Delhi’s Parth Virmani, who plays for Central Revenue, failed to turn up for the match that benefited Mudit immensely. However, he had to play a tough match against Daman & Diu’s Tushar Chauhan who stretched the 21-year-old the full distance in their only group 14 match.
It was not a grand opening for Mudit who fell short of two points in the opening game. However, he picked up steam in the second to level the score in the extended game. The moment of the second game carried him through as he won the third to go 2-1 up. But Tushar seemed to have other plans and, taking a sizeable lead in the fourth, made things difficult for Mudit. Yet, it was creditable that the Mumbai youngster returned to the table with determination to win the match 9-11, 12-10, 11-8, 5-11, 11-7.
Otherwise, it was a cakewalk for all the top group leaders who moved ahead without breaking a sweat. Ali Mohammad of Telangana struggled before overcoming Ravi Joshi of LIC to win his first-round match 11-6, 9-11, 11-9, 11-7 in group 16. Delhi’s Mannit Singh Narang accounted for Jignesh Jaiswal, the oldest player going around the circuit, from Gujarat. The Delhi paddler won 11-8, 11-5, 7-11, 18-20, 11-8, the fourth game taking a toll on the 40-year-old Jaiswal.
Anargaya Manjunath, following her recent international success, put it across PSPB’s Soumi Mandal, winning the first-round match 11-8, 11-9, 11-7 in group 4. Once a promising player that Moumita Datta, representing the Railways, failed to withstand youngster Yashaswini Ghorpade. The RSPB player went down 8-11, 11-9, 9-11, 7-11, jeopardising her main draw chance. The other women’s first-round matches went along the expected lines.
Like A. Sharath Kamal, the world at No. 32, other 15 men seeds will enter the arena tomorrow evening for the main draw matches that get underway. Similarly, in the women’s section, the top eight players enjoying byes will play their first-round match tomorrow. All of them will have to play two rounds in the knockout stages. In other words, only 32 players in the two sections go through the motion of first-round matches.
