Swastika makes a mark, enters semi-finals of North Zone Table Tennis Championships

Unseeded Swastika Ghosh was the cynosure of all eyes at the National Ranking North Zone Table Tennis Championships being held at the Tau Devi Lal Multipurpose Indoor Stadium on Thursday. Swastika Ghosh toppled seventh seed Krittwika Sinha Roy 4-0 to enter the medal round in women’s singles for the first time in her career.

On a day that saw several seeds tumbling out, including the top two seeds, Swastika’s remarkable rise in recent times has caught the imagination of fellow players.

The 18-year-old, who won gold at the WTT Youth Contender in Tunis a month ago, blanked out Krittwika with her superior display. Krittwika had been stretched the full distance in the earlier round by Karnataka’s Kushi Viswanath.

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The fifth, sixth and eighth seeds — Takeme Sarkar, Anusha Kutumbale and Prapti Sen — however, had it easy against their opponents to join Swastika in the semifinals.

Prapti Sen got the better of Surbhi Patwari 8-11, 11-9, 10-12, 11-8, 11-8, 11-9 while Takeme Sarkar beat Diya Chitale 8-11, 11-9, 12-10, 11-6, 4-11, 11-13, 11-9.

Later, Anusha Kutumbale got the better of Shruti Amrute 11-7, 11-5, 16-14, 10-12, 11-5 to advance into the semi-finals.

Earlier, the women's singles top seed Sreeja Akula bowed out, losing to Surbhi Patwari of AAI 1-4, with the latter entering the quarterfinals. Second and third seeds Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee made their exits in the Round of 32.

Men's seeds advance at the North Zone Table Tennis Championships

In men's singles, top seed Sharath Kamal, second seed Manav Thakkar, third seed Soumyajit Ghosh and fifth seed Harmeet Desai all moved into the semifinals.

In the quarter-finals, Sharath Kamal got the better of Sudhanshu Grover 11-5, 12-14, 11-4, 11-6, 11-9 while Harmeet Desai beat Sanil Shetty 14-12, 6-11, 12-10 11-6, 11-7.

In the other quarter-final matches, Soumyajit Ghosh trounced Deepit R Patil 11-5, 9-11, 11-7, 11-6, 11-7 with Manav Thakkar getting the better of Sarthak Seth 11-7, 11-9, 11-5, 11-7.

In the R32 of the men’s singles table tennis event, Wesley Do Rosario of Haryana trounced eighth seed Sushmit Sriram 11-6, 8-11, 11-4, 11-8, 11-5 and Payas Jain defeated Jubin Kumar, also of Haryana, 11-5, 11-9, 12-14, 11-8, 11-7.