Soumyajit Ghosh regains singles crown

National champion Soumyajit Ghosh outpointed Anthony Amalraj in a comeback win at the Vatika national ranking (North Zone) table tennis championships at the Hansraj Model School in the capital on Saturday.

At 10-6, Amalraj was just away from wrapping up a third straight title, but Ghosh not only saved four match-points but went on to beat his PSPB rival 12-10 in the decider for his second title this season, after the South Zone triumph at Chennai. Ghosh won 4-3 and '66,000.

In the women’s final, Manika Batra finally completed a double beating Mouma Das 4-0 in a one-sided affair. Mouma was unable to confront an in-form Manika, who did the double to walk away with '79,200, repeating her feat of two years ago.

Amalraj was leading 2-1 and had to counter Ghosh at 3-3. But two good winners from Ghosh, and two lucky points helped the Siliguri lad level at 10-all. Taking advantage, Ghosh completed his win.

Ghosh will now headed for Sweden for another round of league games having sealed his place in the India team with 300 points for the Commonwealth meet at Surat this December.

Sudhanshu Grover won his first Youth Boys title this season, beating West Bengal’s Arjun Ghosh 4-3. Sudhanshu reached the final at Chennai but lost to colleague Abhishek Yadav while Arjun had won the title at Thane during the West Zone championships.

For Manika, it was back-to-back Youth titles and she had very little to do against team mate Reeth Rishya, who won just one game on the day, losing 1-4 in less than half an hour.