Former national champion Soumyadeep Roy continued to struggle but held on to survive a testing first round during the men’s singles qualification in the Vatika national ranking (North Zone) table tenn
Former national champion Soumyadeep Roy continued to struggle but held on to survive a testing first round during the men’s singles qualification in the Vatika national ranking (North Zone) table tennis championship at the Hansraj Model School in the capital on Wednesday.
The PSPB veteran had to muster all his strength and experience to outsmart Punjab’s Rohan Sahni 9-11, 11-4, 11-7, 8-11, 11-8.
But for Sourav Chakravary, also a former national champion, it was not a lucky first-round outing. The PSPB player made his exit as Tamil Nadu’s Sivananda Seshadri routed him 11-9, 11-2, 11-6 in a Group 25 match.
In other men’s singles first-round matches, Gujarat’s Jignesh Jaiswal struggled to overcome Shubham Ambrea of Mahrashtra 11-3, 12-14, 11-8, 5-11, 11-7, PSPB’s Lalhunhlua, who won 3-2 (11-6, 8-11, 11-5, 8-11, 11-0), found the going tough against Susmith Barigidad of Karnataka and Maharashtra’s Jash Davi continued to surprise with his excellent game plans to beat North Bengal’s Rajib Sarkar 9-11, 6-11, 12-10, 11-9, 11-9, after being woefully placed in the early stages of the match.
In women’s singles first round affairs, Tamil Nadu’s Abhinaya Ramesh defeated Megha Maitra of West Bengal 4-11, 9-11, 14-12, 11-7, 11-9 in an interesting duel in Group 13. But Manisha Mukherjee, also from West Bengal, overcame Telangana’s Varuni Jaiswal 11-6, 7-11, 11-5, 5-11, 11-5 in group 24 and Rajasthan’s Priyanka Pareek beat RBI’s Kakoli Lahkar 11-7, 13-11, 12-14, 10-12, 11-4 in group 23.
After a long time, four Delhi girls — Shrishti Gupta, Harsha Kalra, Aanchal Malhotra and Kritika Malik — made the qualification cut to enter the junior girls main draw.
