Tamil Nadu upset Maharashtra in table tennis meet

Dharamsala, Nov 25: Tamil Nadu Youth Girls sent second-seeded Maharashtra packing in the pre-quarterfinals of the 77th junior and youth national table tennis championships here on Wednesday.

The more humiliating aspect for last year's finalist was the way they were blanked out, making a mockery of the second stage draw.

Selenadeepthi Selvakumar comfortably beat Senhora D'Souza 11-9, 6-11, 11-7, 11-7 to give Tamil Nadu a 1-0 lead. Then Amrutha Pushpak, who struggled in group stage matches, overcame stiff resistance from Manushree Patil 13-11, 8-11, 11-8, 15-17, 11-6. Manushree, twice title winner in the junior section this season, played really well to draw level in the fourth game, but was visibly drained out by the time they were in the decider.

Amrutha, with her experience, outwitted her rival to put TN 2-0 up. Abhinaya Ramesh accounted for Rutuja Khopkar in straight games 11-6, 11-7, 12-10 to make it a simple affair for her team.

Maharashtra B too bowed out, losing to Telangana 2-3, despite Shruti Amrute winning both her singles against Naina and Varuni Jaiswal. The two Telangana girls nicely targeted Dyuti Patki in their singles and the third girl Manasi Chiplunkar was taken care of by Telangana's Monica Manohar.

Kushi Viswanath fashioned Karnataka's quarter-final entry, beating Rajasthan's top girl Priyanka Pareek in the first singles. From there, it was easy for Karnataka to roll over their rivals 3-0 with Spoorthy and Samyukta doing their job even as North Bengal struggled to beat Haryana 3-2.

In youth boys pre-quarters, Uttar Pradesh overcame a determined Gujarat 3-2.

Another interesting match in the youth boys category was between Tamil Nadu and Mizoram, the former winning 3-2. Anandh Raj Rajan did the star turn for the winners. He won both his singles to put the match beyond the grasp of Mizoram.

In the other match, Dena Bank defeated Telangana 3-1 but the winners took 135 minutes to reach the quarters.

Results:

Youth Girls (PQF): AAI bt Himachal Pradesh 3-0, West Bengal bt Gujarat 3-0, Delhi bt Assam 3-0, Telangana bt Maharashtra B 3-2, North Bengal bt Haryana 3-2, Uttar Pradesh bt Pondicherry 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt Maharashtra A 3-0, Karnataka bt Rajasthan 3-0.

Youth Boys (PQF): Maharashtra A bt Bihar 3-0, West Bengal bt Madhya Pradesh 3-0, Rajasthan bt North Bengal 3-0, Delhi bt Punjab 3-0, Maharashtra B bt Karnataka 3-1, Uttar Pradesh bt Gujarat 3-2, Tamil Nadu bt Mizoram 3-2, Dena Bank bt Telangana 3-1.