Anirban, Jeet struggle against qualifiers at Table Tennis Championship

Our Sports Reporter

GUWAHATI: All top 16 seeds in men and eight in women sailed into the round of 32, winning their men and women singles on the second day of the 11Sports National Ranking (East Zone) Table Tennis Championship at the R.G. Barua Sports Complex’s Indoor Stadium here today.

Top-seed Manav Thakkar disposed off Shubham Ambre of Maharashtra 11-8, 11-5, 11-5, 11-7 to sound a warning to the rest of the title contenders, including South Zone winner Anthony Amalraj, who beat Delhi’s Aadarsh Om Chhetri 1-11, 11-4, 11-5, 11-5, 11-6.

Seventh seed Anirban Ghosh and 11th seed Jeet Chandra had the toughest matches and Anirban just escaped by the skin of his teeth to beat qualifier from West Bengal, Neeldeep Das, 15-17, 11-5, 8-11, 11-6, 11-9, 10-12, 11-7 in a marathon that lasted 45 minutes. On the other hand, Haryana’s Jeet Chandra pulled it off in the nick of time to win 11-9, 7-11, 11-5, 12-14, 11-5, 11-6 against ESIC’s Subhendu Show. Both the seeded players had received first-round byes.

Anirban wouldn’t have expected such a resistance coming from Das so early in the match. After several deuces and squandering four game points, Anirban lost the opening game. Yet, he was leading 3-2 and looked like overhauling his West Bengal opponent soon. But Das took the sixth game to push the Railways player to the brink. But Anirban reserved his best for the decider and won comfortably.

All the top eight seeded crossed the first hurdle and moved into the round of 32. But Archana Kamath, seeded No. 2, Madhurika, seeded seventh and Ayhika Mukherjee, No. 8 seed, were stretched by their opponents, giving the fancied players some torrid moments. However, the remaining seeds went through the motions, especially in the top half, against their rivals easily.

Archana was down 1-2 against Tamil Nadu’s Seraha Jacob—she won the third game16-14—but the PSPB paddler, who will be representing India at the Youth Olympics at Buenos Aires next month, came into her groove to arrest a possible upset with a 11-8, 4-11, 14-16, 11-6, 11-9, 11-5.

As for Madhurika, who is not in the best of form, her struggle continued. The seventh seed was up 2-1 yet she allowed qualifier Premangi Ghosh from West Bengal cause a minor stir when she managed to level 2-2 in the fourth game. But the experienced former national champion first managed to pull it off in the fifth game, winning it by minimal points, and then wrap up the match 11-6, 8-11, 11-5, 9-11, 11-9, 11-2 rather quickly.

Ayhika, who was a Team India member at the Asian Games in Jakarta, picked up herself nicely after losing the first against Priyanka Pareek of Rajasthan. But the left-hander, who was returning to the arena after a year’s break, managed to win the fourth game on extended points to give some worries to Ayhika. However, she steadied herself against an error-prone Priyanka to win 8-11, 11-7, 11-6, 9-11, 11-7, 11-4.

Earlier, Mamta Prabhu, Seraha Jacob, Anannya Basak, Garima Goyal, Tejal Kamble and Munmun Kundu qualified for the main draw, courtesy preliminary rounds.

However it was a bad day for Assam as several paddlers of the state bowed out from the competition. Among the losers were Trisha Gogoi in women singles and Birdie Boro in men’s singles. Both failed to cross the first round. On the other hand Saidul Alam Ahmed, Arka Kumar Gogoi, Shankab Baruah although made good start by winning their first round ties but failed to advance more.