Harmeet Desai, the third seed and Raj Mondal, the fifth seed bowed out in third round of the LIC-IOC South Zone National-ranking table tennis tournament on Friday.
Seventh-seeded Sanil Shetty saved five match points against Nitin Thiruvengadam to win 4-3 and enter the pre-quarterfinals. The top two seeds, Sharath Kamal, G. Sathiyan and former National champion A. Amalraj cruised to the last-16 without ado.
Birdie Boro of PSPB made a strong statement with a 4-2 win over Harmeet, while Siddhesh Pande, the former National junior champion (2015) played an attacking seventh game to beat Raj 4-3.
The decider saw Siddhesh play with an uncluttered mind, going for his shots. He did not make and errors on the flanks even when he was under pressure. From 4-4, the 19-year-old from Mumbai ran away with the match.
Nitin had himself to blame against Sanil. With four match points at 10-6 in the sixth game, he could have pocked the match, but wilted committing several unforced errors. He had one more match point in the sixth game at 11-10 but missed it. The decider, too, went to the wire before Sanil prevailed.
Important results: Men (round-of-32): Sharath Kamal (PSPB) bt Ananth Devarajan (TN) 11-7, 9-11, 14-12, 11-9; Siddhesh Pande (Mah-A) bt Raj Mondal (RBI) 4-11, 11-8, 5-11, 4-11,11-4, 11-8, 11-5; Manav Thakkar (PSPB) bt Vivek Bhargava (Raj) 6-11, 11-6, 11-6, 13-11, 11-5; Subhajit Saha (PSPB) bt Jubin Kumar (PSPB) 11-9, 17-15, 15-13, 6-11,11-8; Birdie Boro (PSPB) bt Harmeet Desai (PSPB) 5-11, 11-3, 11-5,11-9, 9-11, 11-7; Jeet Chandra (WB) bt Ronit Bhanja (WB) 11-6,11-9, 11-8, 11-8; A. Amalraj (PSPB) bt Abhishek Yadav (PSPB) 11-6, 11-9, 12-10,11-7.
Sanil Shetty (PSPB) bt Nitin Thiruvengadam (CB) 12-10, 9-11, 4-11, 7-11, 11-8, 16-14, 12-10; Sudanshu Grover (PSPB) bt Devesh Karia (Guj) 5-11,11-3, 11-1, 11-4, 11-5; G. Sathiyan (PSPB) bt S. Sivananda (CRSB) 11-8, 11-6, 11-7, 11-1.
