The men’s singles field of the UTT-South Zone National-ranking championships has been shorn of two of its top stars — G. SAthiyan and Achantha Shrath Kamal.
It had been more or less confirmed late on Wednesday that G. Sathiyan, the highest-ranked Indian in the world, would not be in action owing to his participation in the Bulgarian Open.
Sharath Kamal’s eleventh hour withdrawal due to indisposition has left the field wide open as Anthony Amalraj is also away in Bulgaria.
As a result Manav Thakkar has been given the top billing ahead of PSPB teammate Sudhanshu Grover. Maharashtra’s Siddesh Pande and Sanish Shetty are at No. 3 and 4.
Jeet Chandra, Harmeet Desai, Arjun Ghosh and Sushmit Sriram complete the top eight in that order.
In the women’s section, with Manika Batra and National champion Anupama Kamath absent, Sutirtha Mukherjee has gained the No. 1 ranking. Sutirtha stands a chance of adding another title to her recent North Zone title.
However, she will have to contend with the likes of Madhurika Patkar, Sagarika Mukherjee, Divya Deshpande, Sreeja Akula, Pooja Sahasrabudhe and Ayhika Mukherjee.
The second day of the event was entirely taken up by the qualification rounds — 450 matches on 15 tables in two sessions.
The main draw, starting on Friday, will initially focus on men’s preliminaries wherein 16 players will have to be eliminated to get to the draw of 64.
In women’s singles, however, it will be straight to the draw of 64.
The schedule also includes the round of 32 — of both sections — during the course of what is likely to be another hectic day.
