National Ranking Table Tennis Championships: Madhurika ousted in first round

Madhurika Patkar, a former table tennis national champion, flattered to deceive, bowing out in the round-of-64 at the UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships (South Zone) in Puducherry on Tuesday.

It was qualifier and Tamil Nadu table tennis player Vedhalakshmi Devi who accounted for Madhurika Patkar, winning the tie 4-3 (9-11, 7-11, 11-9, 12-10, 8-11, 11-9, 11-8) at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium.

Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be the best table tennis match in the women’s main draw.

Sitting pretty with a 2-1 lead, Madhurika Patkar failed in quick succession, losing the next two games to the Tamil Nadu table tennis player. However, she came out of the rut to lead before losing the initiative to tiring legs.

Seizing the opportunity, Vedhalakshmi restored parity and completed the task in style in the decider.

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It was creditable that the Tamil Nadu table tennis player neither got overawed by the opponent nor the occasion as she kept a cool head to advance into the next round.

Exciting table tennis first-round matches

A few first-round matches at the UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships (South Zone) also went down to the wire.

The match between Kaushani Nath of Railways and Vidya Narasimhan, representing Central Revenue, drew the attention of fellow players and spectators.

Kaushani, a regular on the circuit with great potential, expectedly led 3-1. But a few blemishes, including poor service, allowed Vidya to claw her way back in the fifth game.

Picking up the thread from there, she went on to level the score when Kaushani made several unforced errors.

Vidya ran close on points before wrapping it up in style, winning 7-11, 5-11, 11-9, 5-11, 11-7, 11-4, 11-9.

The script between RBI table tennis player Harshavardhini Ravichandran and Gujarat paddler Chipia Frenaz also ran more or less parallel. The RBI table tennis player lost the first game but came back strongly to lead 3-1.

Nevertheless, the Gujarat player fought back well to win the last three games to enter the round-of-32, winning 11-9, 5-11, 4-11, 7-11, 11-6, 11-4, 11-6.

Some table tennis seeded players sweat it out

In the men’s round-of-64, fourth-seed Sudhanshu Grover, tenth-seed Sougata Sarkar, and 14th-seed Sushmit Sriram had to pull themselves out of the mire they got stuck to make their progress into the round-of-32.

However, the other seeds had no such hiccups to sail through.

Subham Ambre of Maharashtra had Sudhanshu in a bind for the first two games before the fourth seeded table tennis player could recover to win 4-2 (8-11, 9-11, 11-8, 11-7, 11-5, 11-5).

Veteran Sougata, on the other hand, was caught napping as Kerala’s Soham Bhattacharya made him sweat despite the former’s sizeable lead.

But Sushmit Sriram, who is still recovering from his injured back, was stretched fully by qualifier Arnab Chandra from Bengal. Sushmit, with loads of experience, pulled it off by winning two of the three extended games (8-11, 11-9, 11-7, 10-12, 12-10, 7-11, 12-10).