Backed by a vociferous crowd, consisting mainly of trainees from Capital’s various table tennis academies, Oilmax-Stag Yoddhas rallied to down pre-match favourite RP-SG Mavericks 16-11 in the Ultimate Table Tennis league here on Sunday.
The result virtually put Mavericks out of contention for a place in the semifinals.
As things stand, after four matches each, both teams share the third spot with 48 points.
However, they will be pushed to the joint fifth-place once Shaze Challengers (43) and Maharashtra United (42) play their respective fourth match.
For Yoddhas, Hong Kong’s Doo Hai Kem won both her matches 3-0 to contribute hugely to the winning tally.
She easily defeated Archana Kamath and returned to down an unwell Sofia Polcanova.
In the intervening period, the duo of Aruna Quadri and Manika Batra joined hands to beat Sharath Kamal and Sofia 2-1 in the mixed doubles. Things seriously turned in favour of Yoddhas from the moment Mavericks’ Sharath, leading 2-0 against Tomislav Pucar, surprisingly lost the third set.
What followed was Manika’s surprise 2-1 victory over Sabine Winter. The local girl bounced back from a five-point deficit in the first set to win the ‘golden point’. She dropped a close second set but stayed in control to win the final set.
Quadri finally came good, getting the better of Stefan Fegerl with a 3-0 margin in the penultimate match.
Polina Mikhailova enlarged the winning margin by beating Sabine 2-1.
The results:
Yoddhas beat Mavericks 16-11 (Jubin Kumar lost to Tiago Apolonia 5-11, 6-11, 9-11; Doo Hoi Kem bt Archana Kamath 11-9, 11-3, 11-6; Aruna Quadri & Manika Batra bt A. Sharath Kamal & Sofia Polcanova 11-10, 8-11, 11-8; Tomislav Pucar lost to Apoloina 5-11, 9-11, 5-11; Doo Koi Kem bt Sofia 11-9, 11-7, 11-5; Tomislav Pucar lost to Sharath 5-11, 3-11, 11-6; Manika bt Sabine Winter 11-10, 9-11, 11-6; Aruna bt Stefan Fegerl 11-8, 11-10, 11-5; Polina Mikhailova bt Sabine 10-11, 11-7, 11-9).
