(REJECT) Sreeja crashes out in North Zone TT meet
Tribune News Service
Panchkula, October 20
Top seeded Sreeja Akula bowed out of the UTT National Ranking North Zone Table Tennis Championships as she went down against Surbhi Patwari of Airports Authority of India (4-1) to enter the quarterfinals, at Tau Devi Lal Multipurpose Indoor Stadium here today.
Fourth seeded Reeth Rishya also had a troubled day as she faced 4-2 defeat to unseeded Diya Chitale. However, earlier in the day, second and third seeds Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee made their exits in the Round of 32. Kushi Viswanath from Karnataka defeat Sutirtha (11-8, 11-6, 5-11, 8-11, 11-8 and 11-4) and Varuni Jaiswal of Telangana ousted Ayhika (6-11, 11-8, 11-9, 13-11, 9-11 and 12-10). Reeth struggled before overcoming Poymantee Baisya of Bengal (11-5, 5-11, 5-11, 11-8, 11-8, 9-11 and 11-6).
In another neck-to-neck tie, Diya Chitale of Maharashtra defeated Nithyashree Mani of TTTA (8-11, 12-10, 8-11, 15-17, 11-5, 11-5 and 11-5).
* Sharath enters next round
Top seed Sharath Kamal dropped a couple of games before pulling the plug on the 16th seed Jeet Chandra. The PSPB veteran won (3-1, 9-11, 11-7, 11-3, 11-2 and 11-7) for a quarterfinal showdown with Sudhanshu Grover, who is seeded nine. Another star attraction Manav Thakkar easily defeated Shubh Goel (11-7, 11-8, 11-5 and 11-7).
Seventh seed Ronit Bhanja’s exit was a surprise as he went down to qualifier Sarthak Seth, a TTFI wildcard, (11-8, 10-12, 11-8, 12-10, 8-11 and 12-10) in a grim pre-quarterfinal battle.
The rest of the seeds sealed their passage into the quarterfinals. In men’s round 32 singles event, Wesley Do Rossario of Haryana trounced eighth seed Sushmit Sriram (11-6, 8-11, 11-4, 11-8 and 11-5) and Payas Jain outplayed Jubin Kumar, also of Haryana, (11-5, 11-9, 12-14, 11-8 and 11-7).
Sixth seed Anthony Amarlaj bowed out to lesser-known Saidul Alam Ahmed of IA&AD in the round of 64 matches. The match lasted for nearly an hour, which was won by Ahmed (11-7, 11-8, 8-11, 11-9, 8-11, 5-11 and 11-2).
