Table Tennis Nationals: Sreeja-Diya, Abhinandh-Preyesh crowned national champions

Up against West Bengal’s Aniket Sen Choudhary and Sourav Saha in the final, the Tamil Nadu duo of Abhinandh and Preyesh cruised to a 3-1 win to clinch the men’s doubles title.

'Wanted to go higher'

“It feels great,” said Abhinandh minutes after their win. “We won bronze last year and wanted to go higher this year.

Abhinandh and Preyesh were a bit circumspect to start the match, but ended up pocketing a hard fought first game 12-10. They, however, were blown away in the second, surrendering it 4-11.

Aniket and Sourav though failed to carry forward the momentum as the Tamil Nadu pair bagged the next two games 11-6, 11-7 to win the match.

Abhinandh and Preyesh were rather calm after conceding the second game and went out on all-out attack to clinch the title.

“We do not take any pressure. We just focus on playing our game,” quipped Preyesh.

Sreeja-Diya win women’s title

Later in the day, RBI won the women’s doubles crown, thanks to Sreeja and Diya. They 3-2 win in a tense match over the young pair of Suhana Saini and Prithoki Chakraborti.

The duo from RBI was made to work hard for the win. They, in fact, conceded the opening game 12-14 as Saini and Chakraborti forced errors out of them at critical junctures.

Sreeja and Diya, however, soon regrouped with the former looking close to her best on return from injury.

They won the next two games with an identical margin of 11-4, but failed to wrap up the match in the fourth game despite having two match points.

The nerves seemed to have gotten better of Diya towards the fag end as multiple shots into the net saw Suhana and Prithoki force a decider.

Sreeja and Diya, however, managed to put the errors behind them soon after as they won the decider 11-4 to pocket the title.