National Games 2022: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Manika Batra top seeds in table tennis singles event

Sathiyan Gnanasekaran of Tamil Nadu and Manika Batra of Delhi were given top billing in the men's and women's table tennis singles events at the National Games 2022, respectively.

The table tennis event commences on Wednesday, September 21, at the Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya Indoor Stadium in Surat.

Sathiyan and Manika got the jury’s nod, pushing reigning national champions Achanta Sharath Kamal and Sreeja Akula to the second spot.

Read: National Games 2022: Full schedule, list of sports, venues and dates

Sharath, who went on to win four medals, including three golds, at the recent Birmingham CWG, found himself pushed a rung below because of his world ranking at No. 43. On the other hand, Sathiyan (No. 37) is the top-ranked Indian in the world.

Manika, too, benefited from the same rule as the Delhi paddler is at No. 45, while Sreeja is at No. 77. Sreeja won gold in the mixed doubles event at CWG.

The jury, comprising T.G. Upadhya, A.S. Kler and Anil Dubey, considered the national rankings ahead of the world rankings for seeding purposes.

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Top-eight seeds at National Games 2022

The following are the top eight seeds in the table tennis singles event at the National Games 2022.

Men: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Achanta Sharath Kamal (both Tamil Nadu), Sanil Shetty (Maharashtra), Harmeet Desai (Gujarat), Soumyajit Ghosh, Anirban Ghosh (both West Bengal), Manush Shah, and Manav Thakkar (both Gujarat).

Women: Manika Batra (Delhi), Sreeja Akula (Telangana), Diya Chitale, Reeth Rishya (both Maharashtra), Anusha Kutumbale (Madhya Pradesh), Prapti Sen (West Bengal), Swastika Ghosh (Maharashtra), and Takeme Sarkar (West Bengal).

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Tamil Nadu enters medal rounds

Tamil Nadu women, pushed to the brink, showed character to wriggle themselves out of trouble to beat Karnataka 3-2 in their third round of Group B matches to seal their place in the medal round of the National Games 2022.

Delhi’s men, too, thumped Haryana 3-0 to ensure a medal for them in Group A after Gujarat kept a clean slate to become the group topper.

Credit for putting the team in the National Games 2022 semi-finals goes to C.R. Harshavardhini. She trailed 0-2 before overcoming Kushi Viswanath in the deciding rubber after Yashaswini Ghorphade gave Karnataka a semblance of chance in the medal round. But Harshavardini brushed aside the imminent threat to script what was a fantastic win for the Tamil Nadu girls.

Delhi men were, more or less, sailing in the same boat, having to beat Haryana for their second-stage entry. They did so with precision as Sudhanshu Grover, Payas Jain and Yashansh Malik posted wins over their rivals.