Table tennis: Main draw of North Zone youth events from Monday

Domestic table tennis events in India are continuing with the second leg of the National Ranking North Zone Table Tennis tournament. The youth events are commencing on Sunday.

The sudden extended monsoon rains on Sunday and the breezy conditions could not dampen the spirits of the children competing. The National Ranking North Zone Table Tennis Championships are being held at the Sports Complex at Sector 78 in Mohali.

The youth Under-17 boys and girls qualification events scheduled for Sunday were delayed due to the inclement weather. However, chief referee A.S. Kler put on a brave face.

Quality table tennis on offer

In the second-round group matches, the results of most matches went along the expected lines.

Karnataka table tennis player Varun Kashyap was surprised by Harshit Kumar of Bihar. He kept his opponent on the tenterhooks until Kashyap managed to take the last game to win 11-1, 3-11, 11-6, 5-11, 11-7.

Delhi’s Atherva Gupta also struggled before overcoming Punjab’s Vanad Kumar, who needed to win the last two games to beat the Punjab lad. The Delhi boy won 8-11, 11-6, 11-13, 11-7, 11-4.

Rajasthan table tennis player Aaron Gupta managed to put it across Daksh Khandelwal of Delhi to win 11-7, 7-11, 7-11, 11-9, 11-8. Haryana paddler Siddhant Kataria defeated Delhi’s Arjav Gupta 8-11, 11-8, 8-11, 11-5, 11-5 to rekindle his hopes.

The match between Gujarat’s Dhyey Jain and Arjit Das of National Centre of Excellence, Kolkata, also got stretched. The Gujarat boy romping home 11-8, 9-11, 11-7, 5-11, 12-10 as the winner.

Delhi table tennis player Aashish Jain began and ended well after Shreyas Mane from Maharashtra gave some torrid moments. Jain beat Mane 11-7, 7-11, 118, 7-11, 11-9. But Oishik Ghosh of Bengal was not lucky as he went down 3-11, 11-7, 11-9, 10-12, 9-11 to Navaneeth Kutty of TNTTA.

Rishabh Mayank of Haryana defeated Rohan Dani, a wildcard entrant from TTFI, 11-6, 9-11, 11-8, 2-11, 11-2 in a bottom group. However, Rajkhowa Roy, also a wildcard, beat Shrisha Roy of Bengal 12-10, 9-11, 11-4, 9-11, 11-8.

The top-eight seeds in the boys' and girls' table tennis categories were decided as per their rankings.

Youth U-17 boys seedings: Preyesh Raj Suresh (TNTTA), Aadarsh Om Chetri (Del), Divyansh Srivastava (UP0, Jash Modi (Mah), Ankur Bhattacharya (Ben), Samyak Kashyap (Kar), P.B. Abhinand (TTTA) and Sarth Mishra (UP).

Youth U-17 girls seedings: Suhana Saini (Har), Lakshita Narang (Del), Taneesha Kotecha (Mah), Sayali Wani (Mah), Pranati P. Nair (Ker), Karuna Gajendran (Kar), M. Hansini (TNTTA), Pritha Vartikar (Mah).