Ramaswamy stuns Srivatsa to qualify

LODHIVALI: Like scores auditioning for supporting cast roles in a movie, dozens of players competed in the qualifying rounds of the 66th National table tennis championships at Reliance township over Thursday and Friday. At the end of the massive exercise, 37 women and 44 men won berths in the main draw, where they join the top eight seeds and direct entrants.
Forty-two year old S Ramaswamy of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB), playing a record-equalling 29th consecutive nationals (he joined S Sriram at the milestone), qualified with a thrilling 11-9, 4-11, 11-5, 8-11, 11-9 victory over a much younger K Srivatsa (Tamil Nadu).In another unexpected result, Karnataka''s H Prathik beat Tanmay Datta of Maharashtra-A 11-9, 11-5, 9-11, 11-9.
Petroleum Sports Promotion Boards Sushmita Roy and G Vinod of Tamil Nadu, seeded ninth in the women''s and men''s sections, respectively, faced no hiccups on the qualification route. Sushmita defeated K Swathy of Andhra Pradesh 11-9, 11-4, 11-7 while Vinod beat Kerala''s P Adarsh 11-8, 11-8, 11-7.
Qualifying round results (of players seeded 9-16): Women''s: Sushmita Roy (Petroleum) bt K Swathy (AP) 11-9, 11-4, 11-7; S Prasanna Devi (Railways) bt Baby Sinha (Bihar) 11-7, 11-6, 11-5; Moushami Paul (Centre of Excellence) bt Sweta Srivastava (Chhattisgarh) 11-5, 11-5, 11-5; Vishakha Vijay (Rajasthan) bt Anchal Batra (Delhi) 11-3, 11-5, 11-2; Kanchan Basak (Punjab) bt Shreya Swar (Goa) 11-3, 11-2, 11-5; Kasturi Chakraborty (Petroleum) bt Geeta Purania (BSNL) 11-6, 11-3, 11-4; B Bhuwaneshwari (Petroleum) bt V Malini (Delhi) 11-7, 11-5, 11-7; Meenu Dhawan (Railways) bt Indu Ujwal (Rajasthan) 11-8, 11-9, 11-6.
Men''s: G Vinod (Tamil Nadu) bt P Adarsh (Kerala) 11-8, 11-8, 11-7,
J Jaiswal (Gujarat) bt Joy Mukharjee (Bihar) 11-7, 11-5, 11-8; Shubham Choudhary (Petroleum) bt Thirumurgam K (Pond) 11-3, 11-7, 11-3; Jayant Chandra (AP) bt Hemant Kumar (HP) 11-2, 11-2, 12-10; Amit Das (Railways) bt Bishan Roy (Tripura) 11-2, 11-7, 11-3; P R Bose (Railways) bt Ganesh Ahuja (Haryana) 11-6, 11-5, 11-4; G Jitendra (Railways) bt Vikram Aditya (Punjab) 11-7, 11-5, 11-3; Anal Kashyap (Assam) bt Ravi Shankar (Karnataka) 11-9, 11-1, 11-8.