The Petroleum men and Reserve Bank of India girls, and their coaches, proudly pose with their reward after retaining the group titles.
| Photo Credit: Rakesh Rao
As extensively anticipated, Petroleum went by means of the motions of successful the group title in the National table tennis championship for a record-extending 27th time and Reserve Bank of India girls got here up with their first profitable title-defence.
Petroleum, with out the providers of ace Sharath Kamal, selected to relaxation spearhead Harmeet Desai in the ultimate. Defending singles champion G. Sathiyan, who arrived right here on Monday night, was fielded for the third singles whereas the struggling duo of A. Amalraj and Manav Thakkar had been to play two singles every, if wanted.
Strongest trio
Like in Jammu, in the earlier version, RBI paraded its strongest trio of defending singles winner Sreeja Akula, Ayhika Mukherjee and an not-so-fully-fit Diya Chitale towards Tamil Nadu.
If the TN women Yashini Sivashankar, Kavyashree Baskar and Selenadeepthi Selvakumar had been hoping to avenge the 2-3 defeat suffered at Jammu, RBI served a impolite shock.
The equivalent 3-0 margins for the winners’ got here with out the members of those champion groups being required to play their finest. This highlighted the gulf that exists between some institutional groups and people from States.
Bouncing again
A rusty Amalraj, a former National champion, dropped the opening recreation to much-younger Payas Jain however bounced again to power a match-point in the fourth recreation. The Delhi teenager received 4 factors on the trot to power the decider, the place Amalraj nearly managed to return out stronger.
Manav, having misplaced twice on solution to this ultimate, performed higher towards a combating Sudhanshu Grover to win in 4 video games. Sathiyan took time to get the texture of the situations towards rising-talent Shubh Goel and swiftly closed out the ultimate with a 11-2 scoreline in the third recreation.
In the ladies’s ultimate, Arjuna Award-elect Ayhika saved two match-points — one every in the third and fifth video games — towards an inconsistent Yashini to return out stronger. Sreeja expectedly tamed Kavyashree to double RBI’s lead.
Finishing touches
It was left to an injured Diya to place the ending touches towards Selena. In spite of wanting far from regular in her actions, Diya outplayed Selena in the second and third video games to maneuver forward. Selena struck proper again to power the decider.
Here, Selena had match-points at 10-9, 12-11 and 13-12 and confronted one at 10-11. But all credit score to Diya for taking part in the massive factors higher and finally shutting out the competition by racing away with the final three factors.
The outcomes (ultimate): Men: Petroleum bt Delhi 3-0 (A. Amalraj bt Payas Jain Sept. 11, 13-11, 11-9, 11-13, 11-9; Manav Thakkar bt Sudhanshu Grover 11-9, 11-8, 5-11, 11-9; G. Sathiyan bt Shubh Goel 11-6, 11-9, 11-2).
Women: Reserve Bank of India bt Tamil Nadu 3-0 (Ayhika Mukherjee bt Yashini Sivashankar 12-14, 3-11, 13-11, 11-6, 13-11; Sreeja Akula bt Kavyashree Baskar 11-3, 11-8, 11-5; Diya Chitale bt Selenadeepthi Selvakumar 6-11, 11-5, 11-7, 8-11, 15-13).
