Bahrain: Ankita Das on Friday upset third-seed Romanian Bernadette Szocs 4-3 (11-6, 11-9, 2-11, 7-11, 7-11, 11-8, 13-11) to reach the round of 16 in the Volkswagen World Junior Table Tennis Championships. Ankita now will take on Hsien-Tzu Cheng for a berth in the quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Ankita and Reeth lost their first round match to Chinese Meng Chen and Yuting Gu 6-11, 4-11, 5-11.
It must be said to the credit of Anikita, who fought valiantly first in the sixth game to level the score at 3-3 and then in the decider outsmarted her Romaian rival who, at one time led 7-2, to win 13-11 and move into the third round.
Coach Bhawani Mukherjee gave full credit to Anikta but said she should not have slowed down after taking the first two games to allow her opponent gain ascendancy. “But Ankita never gave up even after trailing 2-7 in the decider and she really fought well,” he said.
Meanwhile, Soumyajit Ghosh, Sourav Saha and Harmeet Desai won their respective first-round boys’ singles, while Ankita Das defeated her Egyptian rival to move into the second round of the Volkswagen World Junior Table Tennis Championships on Thursday night. They will be playing their second round matches later on Friday evening.
Later both Ghosh and Desai combined well to reach the pre-quarterfinals of the boys’ doubles but lost to No. 1 seeded pair of Koki Niwa and Maharu Yoshimura of Japan 7-11, 11-6, 3-11, 8-11, 8-11.
The Indian pair began promisingly winning the first and the third games to push the Japanese on the back foot. But top-seeded pair did well under pressure to see off the Indian challenge. Ghosh and Desai had earlier beaten the English pair of Sean Cullen and Liam Pitchford 10-12, 11-8, 11-5, 11-8 in the pre-quarters. G, Sathyan and Sourav Saha, however, lost to the Belgian duo of Jullien Indeherberg and Emilien Vanrossomme 11-4, 4-11, 5-11, 5-11 in the round of 32.
In the main draw of the girls doubles, Manika Batra and Mallika Bhandarkar downed the Swede pair of Linda Bergstorm and Maria Engleson 11-7, 13-11, 11-9, but lost to Nina Mittleham and Petrissa Solja of Germany 4-11, 6-11, 3-11. Earlier, Ankita and Reeth lost their first round match to Chinese Meng Chen and Yuting Gu 6-11, 4-11, 5-11.
Ghosh, who accounted for world No. 154 Florian Wanger 12-10, 11-4, 11-6, 11-4 of Germany in straight games will take on Taipei’s Chia-Sheng Lee in the second round later tonight. Similarly, Desai plays Belgian Cedric Nuytinck in his next round while Saha meet Liam Pitchford of England.
Desai, who struggled to start with, clawed his way back after losing the first two games to beat his Japanese opponent Asuka Sakai 4-3 (9-11, 5-11,11-6,11-7,11-8,8-11,10-12). It was a see-saw battle for Desai after the Japanese went ahead 3-2 taking the third, fourth and fifth games before the Indian pulled his socks to win the last two games.
For Saha, however, it was rather easy as he downed Argengine Pablo Saragovi 4-1 (12-10, 8-11, 11-4, 11-4, 11-4) to move into the round of 32. Ankita Das defeated Nadeey Dawlatly 11-9, 11-6, 5-11, 12-10, 11-6 and will run into Bernadette Szocs in the second round.
Manika, who fell the wayside along with Mallika and Reeth in the first round, fought bravely for nearly two hours to stretch Japan’s Miyu Maeda to lose 3-4 (10-12, 11-3, 11-6, 9-11, 11-8, 8-11, 12-10).
