Achanta Sharath Kamal pulls out of senior Table tennis nationals (Sharath Kamal Twitter)
Defending champion Sharath Kamal has been compelled to pull out of males’s TT nationals owing to again and calf points
Back and calf points have compelled defending champion Achanta Sharath Kamal to pull out of the boys’s singles occasion of the 84th UTT Inter-State Senior National Table Tennis Championships starting on Saturday.
The last-minute pullout as a result of of the recurring again and calf spasms that Sharath has suffered previously two months have dealt a blow to the organisers and the native spectators.
But his absence would assist former nationwide champion G. Sathiyan’s trigger as he eyes his second title.
Sharath, a 10-time nationwide champion, stated he has to be cautious and proceed the rehab programmes devised earlier than the World Championships in Durban in May.
“The Worlds in May final week is my focus, and I need to put together properly for the massive occasion. Most importantly, I don’t need to irritate the scenario. I’m going straight to rehab and focus simply on the Durban Worlds,” he stated in a launch.
The PSPB paddler indulged in extra stretching before the quarters and semi-finals of the team championships to keep fit. He was in discomfort, but his commitment to the team’s cause kept him going as he competed and won the matches without letting the cat out of the bag.
As for the matches on the fifth day of the championships, the top 16 seeded players in the men’s section and eight in the women’s category will get into action from Saturday when the second stage draw, the knockout, begins.
The women will play three rounds, while the men will play two. With the group topper emerging as the qualifier for the knockout round, there will be a tough fight among the players in 78 groups (women) and 96 in men’s singles, respectively.
Meanwhile, the 16 men and eight women players will have a good day’s rest before the battle for the title and the prize purse of Rs. 16 lakh gets hot.
The top-ranked players in both sections are:
Men: G. Sathiyan, Manush Shah, Harmeet Desai, Manav Thakkar, Sanil Shetty, Anirban Ghosh, Sudhanshu Grover, Jeet Chandra, SFR Snehit, Soumyajit Ghosh, Anthony Amalraj, Ronit Bhanja, Payas Jain, Deepit R. Patil, Yashansh Malik and Subh Goel.
Women: Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Reeth Rishya, Diya Chitale, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Anusha Kutumbale, Swastika Ghosh and Prapti Sen.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is printed from a syndicated information company feed)
