The Hindu : Sport / Table Tennis : Easy passage for favourites

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 08, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Table Tennis

Easy passage for favourites

Amitabha Das Sharma

PATNA: The favoured names had an easy passage to the main draw of the individual events of the 70th National and inter-State table tennis championship at the Secretariat Sports Club complex here on Wednesday.

With the top players of the country, including the national champions Achanta Sharath Kamal and Poulami Ghatak, getting direct entries in the main draw for the individual event, the rest had to come through a gruelling three-round qualifier.

Anirban Nandi (Railways), Zubin Kumar (Petroleum), Sanil Shetty (Maharashtra), R. Abhishek, Sivananda Seshadri (both Tamil Nadu), Subham Chowdhury, Ranabir Das (both W. Bengal), Jignesh Jaiswal (Gujarat), Arpit Bopalkar (Railways) and Raj Mondal (North Bengal) were among the prominent names in the men’s section making it to the main draw.

The main draw will start on Friday after the inter-State finals on Thursday. There will be three events in the individual category singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

Meanwhile, in the men’s quarterfinals which extended late into Tuesday evening, North Bengal upstaged a strong Maharashtra-A to fix a semifinal clash against last year’s runner-up Railways.

Some error in compilation of the results temporarily put West Bengal in the semifinals though it had lost to last year’s semifinalist Gujarat. The latter will now take on defending champion Petroleum in the semifinals.

The results: Team: Men: Quarterfinals: Petroleum bt Haryana 3-0; Gujarat bt West Bengal 3-1; North Bengal bt Maharashtra-A 3-2; Railways bt Tamil Nadu 3-0.

Classification matches (position 9-12): Assam bt Karnataka 3-0; Maharashtra-B bt Rajasthan 3-2; Andhra Pradesh bt Uttar Pradesh 3-2; Delhi bt Chhattisgarh 3-2.

Women: Classification matches (9-12): Andhra Pradesh bt Madhya Pradesh 3-0; Delhi bt Haryana 3-1; Assam bt Punjab 3-0; Uttar Pradesh beat Manipur 3-0.

The individual seedings (direct entries): Men: 1. A. Sharath Kamal, 2. Subhajit Saha, 3. A. Amal Raj (all Petroleum), 4. Sourav Chakraborty (Rlys), 5. G. Sathiyan (TN), 6. Aman Balgu (Mah), 7. Devesh Karia (Petro), 8. Aniket Koparkar (Mah).

Women: 1. K. Shamini, 2. Neha Aggarwal, 3. Madhurika Patkar, 4. Poulami Ghatak, 5. Susmita Ray (all Petro), 6. Anindita Chakraborty (Rly), 7. Pooj Sahasrabudhe (Petro), 8. Prajakta Tipale (Rlys).

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport