NAGPUR:
Jennifer Varghese
continued from where she left off in the state championship to seal her maiden U-17 medal in the national ranking table tennis tournament. The 13-year-old won a bronze medal in the Youth category of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) organized championship at Mohali, Punjab, on Tuesday.
On her way to seal her first national medal in the U-17 age group, the city paddler surprised second seeded and Delhi's top ranked player
Lakshita Narang
in the pre-quarterfinal stage of the tournament.
Earlier in the month,
Jennifer
won her first medal in the Open Women's group in the state championship to qualify for the national ranking tournaments at Panchkula and Mohali in various age categories.
In the ranking event at Mohali, an unseeded Jennifer gave a positive start to her campaign. In her first outing Jennifer outplayed
Sahana Murthy of Karnataka and posted a fine 3-2 victory over Haryana's Gargi Dangi in the second round to set up her first big battle against Delhi's top paddler and second seeded Lakshita.
In an exciting pre-quarterfinal clash Jennifer posted a hard fought 3-2 win over the second seed to hog the limelight. In the seven-game quarterfinal tie, Jennifer made light work of Bengal's
Srijita Shaw
Bengal 4-1 to assure herself her maiden national medal by qualifying for the semifinals.
The youngster, however, was left without gas in the last four clash and went down fighting against
Tamil Nadu's
Kavyasree Baskar
.
RESULTSSemifinal: Jennifer Varghese lost to Kavyasree Baskar (Tamil Nadu) 8-11, 9-11, 8-11, 6-11.
Quarterfinal: Jennifer Varghese bt Srijita Shaw (Bengal) 12-10, 11-8, 12-10, 9-11, 11-1;
PQF: Jennifer Varghese bt
Laklshita Narang
(Delhi) 11-9, 6-11, 11-9, 8-11, 11-5;
Rd 2: Jennifer Varghese bt Gargi Dangi (Haryana) 11-8, 5-11, 11-13, 11-3, 11-6;
Rd 1: Jennifer Varghese bt Sahana Murthy 11-5, 11-5, 11-4
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