Table Tennis
Manav Thakkar, Sreeja Akula win National Ranking TT C'ships title
Manav Thakkar overcame G Sathiyan while Sreeja Akula defeated Archana Kamath in the final of National Ranking Table Tennis C'ships.
Manav Thakkar and Sreeja Akula (Source: Manav Thakkar/Instagram)
Top-seed Manav Thakkar and Sreeja Akula continued their good form to clinch the men's singles and women's singles titles at the UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships on Saturday.
In the men's singles final, Manav defeated an injured G Sathiyan 4-2. Sathiyan, the second seed, conceded the match in the sixth game when he was trailing 0-2 because of a back spasm.
Sathiyan fought well and started with a lead of 2-1 but his back started troubling him before the reigning national champion conceded the title.
Earlier in the semis, Manav picked up from where he left off Friday to beat Anthony Amalraj 4-1.
Second seed Sathiyan dropped a couple of games against Sourav Saha, but the latter could neither repeat his quarterfinal performance nor stop his rival from entering his maiden final of the season. Sathiyan won 4-2.
In the women's singles final, Archana Kamath conceded a lead of 3-1 to top-seed Sreeja Akula.
Despite the lead of 3-1, Archana failed to press home the advantage to win her second crown. After falling behind early in the match, Sreeja came back strong in the fifth game and then went on to win the title after a thrilling final.
The second seed Archana led 10-8 in the decider but failed to nail it down when the opportunity presented. She allowed Sreeja four consecutive points from that position to help her claim the title.
Archana will retrospect the loss and regret her defensive tactics at times. It is not her game because whenever she attacked, she more often than not finished well.
Archana decimated third seed Ayhika Mukherjee in the semifinals to win 4-0, and her dominance was so much that she needed just 25 minutes to finish the job.
Sreeja sailed into the final after some midway struggles against fourth seed Sutirtha, winning her semifinal 4-2.
Sarth Mishra wins U-19 boys title
In the U-19 Youth Boys fina, Sarth Mishra dug himself out of deep trouble to clinch the title against Divyansh Mishra.
After a comfortable 3-0 lead by Divyansh, Sarth looked down the barrel. But he avoided the inevitable title loss as he inched his way up slowly but surely to gather courage and bring momentum into his game to do the impossible.
The pressure was on Divyansh, and he wilted after the deuce in three successive games to give Sarth his crown.
