Excelsior Sports Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 21: Sreeja Akula of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) dropped a game against Pranati P. Nair of Kerala before the reigning singles national champion picked up steam to take their team into the quarterfinals in the 84th UTT Inter-State National Table Tennis Championships, hosted by J&K Table Tennis Association at Gymnasium Hall, University of Jammu today.
Even before Sreeja, who played the second tie for RBI, consolidated their position, Ayhika Mukherjee put the top-seeded institutional squad in the lead with a comfortable 11-3, 11-5, 11-4 win over Seraha Jacob of Kerala. The experienced Ayhika needed no second invitation to shut out the Kerala woman in less than 15 minutes.
But Sreeja got caught on the wrong foot, struggling to adjust to Pranati’s game plan and lost on extended points. However, the star paddler reverted to her attacking mode and reaped the benefits. Pranati, unable to cope with the pressure, wilted under pressure, and RBI went 2-0 up with a 10-12, 11-5, 11-6, 11-7 win. Diya Chitale wasted no time disposing of Renuka Ashwani, winning the third tie by 11-6, 11-6, 11-3.
The other teams that passed the muster to enter the quarterfinals included Haryana, Delhi, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and PSPB.
Delhi defeated Karnataka by 3-1, the former’s women had to put up a brave front in the face of consistent resistance from Khushi Viswanath and Deshna Vanshika. Khushi accounted for Delhi’s top player Garima Goyal by 3-2. Garima began well and led 2-1 before going down to Kushi.
Mariya Rony failed to capitalise and went down in straight games to Vanshika Bhargava as the latter pulled level. Tamanna Saini got stretched by Deshna, yet the Delhi paddler held her nerves to put her team 2-1 up. Vanshika, in her second singles, downed Khushi without a fuss, winning the tie 11-4, 11-5, 11-6.
Similarly, Maharashtra women dropped a tie when Trisha Gogoi of Assam defeated Shruti Amrute by 5-11, 10-12, 11-3, 15-13, 11-4, but Swastika Ghosh, who provided the lead for Maharashtra when she beat Kritika Upadhyaya by 3-1, Taneesha Kotecha, who accounted for Jitakhee Muzumdar 3-1, and Swastika finished it for their State. Swastika did drop a game against Trisha but pulled it off with a 12-10, 11-5, 10-12, 17-15 triumph. But for these, all others had easy passage beating their opponents by 3-0.
All the eight-seeded teams in the men’s section made it to the quarterfinals, registering easy wins over their rivals. Sharath Kamal, who made his appearance in the second stage, made his intentions clear with an 11-13, 11-2, 11-4, 11-4 win over Akash Gupta of Uttarakhand to consolidate the lead after Harmeet Desai put PSPB 1-0 up with his 7-11, 11-5, 11-4, 11-7 triumph against Gautam Dhruvansh. Manav Thakkar completed the job when he downed Nitin Singh by 11-4, 11-3, 11-5.
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