Perhaps spurred on by the loudspeakers blaring from the adjoining school to the Pandit Dindayal Upadhyay Indoor Stadium in Surat, the dark horses exceeded expectations and pushed the favourites to their limits in the 86th Senior National Table Tennis Championship.
On Friday, young Nandini Saha of Bengal caused a major upset by ousting defending champion and eighth seed Poymantee Baisya of Railways in a thrilling five-game encounter. Meanwhile, Gujarat’s Pratha Pawar and Assam’s Priyanuj Bhattacharyya came agonisingly close to defeating women’s top seed Sreeja Akula and men’s second seed Ankur Bhattacharjee, respectively, in the singles main draw round of 64.
Poymantee, who had surprisingly clinched the National title in Panchkula in the previous edition, has had a lacklustre season. It ended in the worst possible manner, with Nandini overshadowing her in a tense and hard-fought battle.
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Sreeja – making her first appearance in this edition – took time to adjust to the conditions and found herself trailing 2-1. However, the two-time National champion capitalised on her effective forehand top-spin during critical moments to secure a third-round berth.
Earlier in the evening, rising star Ankur Bhattacharjee was stretched to the limit by Priyanuj – a protege of Olympian S. Raman and former India No. 1 Bhuvaneswari – who had been one of the standout performers in the team championship earlier in the week. In what was undoubtedly the match of the day, the duo engaged in long, fast-paced rallies before Bhattacharjee, displaying superior speed, finally converted his third match point to emerge victorious.
Elsewhere in the first round, 13th seed P.B. Abhinandh of Tamil Nadu suffered a shock defeat to Arjav Gupta (PSPB academy) in four games.
Important results:
Singles second round:
Men: (1) G. Sathiyan (PSPB) bt Chinmaya Somaiya (Mah) 11-7, 9-11, 11-5, 11-9; (16) Jeet Chandra (RSPB) bt Mohammed Ali (Tel) 11-2, 9-11, 11-7, 9-11, 11-5; (9) A. Amalraj (PSPB) bt Rounak Mazumder (Ben) 8-11, 11-7, 11-8, 11-5; S. Karthikeyan (TN) bt Shankhadip Das (Ben) 7-11, 13-11, 11-8, 6-11, 12-10; H. Jeho (Miz) bt Sarthak Gandhi (Har) 8-11, 11-4, 4-11, 11-6, 11-9; Bodhisatwa Chaudhary (Ben) bt Rohith Shankar (Kar) 11-6, 7-11, 10-12, 11-6, 11-8; Siddhesh Pande (Mah) bt S. Preyesh Raj (TN) 12-14, 11-2, 11-3, 11-7; (2) Ankur Bhattacharjee (PSPB) bt Priyanuj Bhattacharyya (Asm) 11-9, 9-11, 11-8, 6-11; 11-7.
Women: (1) Sreeja Akula (RBI) bt Pratha Pawar (Guj) 11-6, 12-14, 7-11, 12-10, 12-10; Nandini Saha (Ben) bt (8) Poymantee Baisya (RSPB) 6-11, 11-8, 3-11, 12-10, 11-6; (5) Taneesha Kotecha (Mah) bt Sagarika
Mukherjee (RSPB) 11-4, 10-12, 13-11, 5-11, 11-8; (2) Swastika Ghosh (AAI) bt Riya Jayswal (Guj) 11-5, 11-9, 12-10; Takeme Sarkar (RSPB) bt Priyadarshini Das (RBI) 8-11, 1-11, 11-9, 11-4, 11-8; (4) Yashaswini Ghorpade (PSPB) bt Srijanee Dey (Ben) 11-9, 11-8, 11-9.
