National Table Tennis Championships: Manika Batra suffers defeat while Ayhika Mukherjee, Sharath Kamal, Gnanasekaran advance

Ace Indian table tennis player Manika Batra (PSPB) suffered a 3-4 defeat at the hands of Ayhika Mukherjee (RBI). The loss came after a hard fought battle in the women’s singles pre-quarterfinals of the ongoing Senior National Table Tennis Championships on Sunday (April 24).

With this 11-7, 8-11, 4-11, 11-9, 5-11, 13-11, 3-11 loss against Ayhika, world No. 48 Batra has exited from the tournament. Manika was trailing 1-2 initially in the match but bounced back to level the score at 2-2 and then 3-3, taking the contest to a decider.

In the final game, Ayhika kept her composure to pull off a major upset by beating her top-seeded opponent. She will now take on Moumita Dutta from Bengal-A in the women's quarterfinals clash.

Meanwhile, Achanta Sharath Kamal defeated KJ Akash (Karnataka) 4-0 and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (PSPB) had an easy win against Deepit Rajesh Patil (Maharashtra-A) 4-0.

Manav Thakkar (PSPB) also advanced to the quarterfinals after defeating Sudanshu Grover (Delhi) 4-2 in the men's singles match. Soumyajit Ghosh stunned Harmeet Desai with a 4-1 win in a one-sided pre-quarterfinals match.

However, Diya Chitale of Maharashtra-A was outplayed by Mouma Das. The 38-year-old five-time National champion was playing her first tournament after a three-year maternity hiatus.

She bouced back from a 3-0 deficit to fetch a 4-3 (10-12, 8-11, 10-12, 12-10, 11-9, 11-8, 11-7) win to secure the quarterfinals berth. Mouma will next face Anusha Kutumbale of Madhya Pradesh.

Senior National Table Tennis Championships Pre- quarterfinals overall results:

Men: A Sharath Kamal bt KJ Akash (Kar) 4-0; G Sathiyan (PSPB) bt Deepit Rajesh Patil (Mah-A) 4-0; Manav Thakkar (PSPB) bt Sudanshu Grover (Del) 4-2; Sourava Saha (Har) bt Soham Bhattacharya (Ker) 4-3; Manush Shah (Guj) bt A Amalraj (PSPB) 4-3; Soumyajit Ghosh (Har) bt Harmeet Desai (PSPB) 4-1; Sanil Shetty (PSPB) bt Jeet Chandra (Har) 4-1; Anirban Ghosh (RSPB) bt Yashansh Malik (Del) 4-3.

Women: Ayhika Mukherjee (RBI) bt Manika Batra (PSPB) 4-3; Akula Sreeja (RBI) bt Sagarika Mukherjee (RSPB) 4-1; Reeth Rishya (PSPB) bt Sutirtha Mukherjee (RSPB) 4-3; Moumita Dutta (Ben-A) bt Yashaswini Ghorpade (Kar) 4-0; Swastika Ghosh (Mah-A) bt Krittwika Sinha Roy (PSPB) 4-1; Takeme Sarkar (RSPB) bt S. Yashini 4-2; Anusha Kutumbale (MP) bt Poymantee Baisya (Ben-A) 4-1; Mouma Das (PSPB) bt Diya Chitale (Mah-A) 4-3.