Priyanka Pareek squandered five match-points, but held her nerve to outlast a fighting Prapti Sen to win the junior girls’ final that went the distance in the 11Even Sports National-ranking table tennis tournament here on Sunday.
Rajasthan’s Priyanka, seeded fifth, led 10-5 in the deciding seventh game, but an undeterred Prapti made it 10-all.
All credit to Priyanka, who did not let the disappointment overwhelm her. She eventually converted the sixth championship point when Prapti netted a return. Priyanka won 11-8, 11-13, 11-6, 7-11, 9-11, 11-9, 12-10 to clinch her maiden National-ranking title.
Prapti, the West Bengal challenger, led 3-2 in the best-of-seven-game final after bouncing back from 8-10 to claim the second. Thereafter, Priyanka managed to come out stronger in the close sixth game after taking a 6-3 lead to force the decider.
The winner received Rs. 13,200 and a golden trophy while runner-up was presented Rs. 6,600 and a silver trophy.
Earlier, Poulomi Ghatak and her husband Soumyadeep Roy, both former National champions, made the main draw.
The group league produced anticipated outcomes leading to the main draw in both men and women sections.
Those who exceeded expectations to make the grade were Shivaji Rao (Jharkhand), Peeyush Prasad (Delhi), Anirban Roychoudhury (Railways), Sameer Sahni (Delhi), Manush Shah (Gujarat), Wesley Do Rosario (Goa), Ashish Duklan (Delhi), Subhendu Show (West Bengal), Sayantan Dey (West Bengal), Himanshu Jindal (Delhi), Koushik Desarkar (DASCB), Kiranjoy Pushilal (West Bengal), M. Kalaivanan (TN), Somnath Ghosh (Telg), Asif Haque (RBI), Mohammad Ali (Telg) and R. Anandh Raj (TN) to be among the 50 qualifiers.
In the ladies section, Poulomi led the pack of those who finished ahead of higher-ranked players to advance to the main draw.
The others were V.M. Spoorthi (Karnataka), Sutiratha Mukherjee (West Bengal), Prapti Sen (West Bengal), Priyadarshini Das (West Bengal), Manushree Patil (Mhr), Harsha Vardhini (AAI) and Saswati Ghosh (MP).
The results: Junior girls: Final: Priyanka Pareek (Raj) bt Prapti Sen (WB) 11-8, 11-13, 11-6, 7-11, 9-11, 11-9, 12-10.
Semifinals: Priyanka bt Seleenadeepthi Selvakumar (TN) 11-8, 11-4, 11-7, 11-9; Prapti bt R. Abhinaya (TN) 8-11, 11-3, 11-13, 11-4, 11-3, 3-11, 12-10.
