Gujarat paddlers advance in qualifiers

AHMEDABAD: Hosts Gujarat and Maharashtra once again led the chart of qualifiers in Sub-Juniors in the National Ranking (West Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the Veer Savarkar Municipal Corporation Stadium in Rajkot on Monday. As many as seven players from Maharashta made the cut - Rajesh Patil Deepit, Karan Kukreja, Hrishikesh Malhtora, Shivam Das, Aryan Panse, Sahil Joshi and Manav Mehta going through.From Gujarat, it was Abhilash Raval, Pratham Madlani, Ayaz Murad, Vidit Desai, Deep Bhandari, Chitrax Bhatt and Dhairya Parmar who made it to Stage 2 of the qualifiers.
There were quite a few second round matches in the sub-junior boys which went the full distance. For instance, the match between Karan Kukreja of Maharashtra struggled to beat Harshil Kothari of Gujarat 11-8, 6-11, 11-9, 8-11, 11-3, Gujarat's Ayaz Murad defeated PSBA's Khelendrajit 9-11, 15-13, 11-6, 9-11, 11-6. Manav Mehta, too, had to bring out his best in this round against Rahul Malik of Haryana to win 11-7, 11-5, 7-11, 9-11, 11-7.
In the first round earlier, Karantaka's Aakash Jagadish had to really play well the decider, which he won on extended points, to beat Darshil Jariwala of Guajrat. The Karnataka lad won 5-11, 11-7, 4-11, 11-9, 12-10. But another Karnataka boy Rathin Suresh Kumar failed to survive against Vidit Desai of Guajrat who won 11-4, 11-7, 5-11, 10-12, 11-6.
In sub-junior girls, Charmi Patel from Guajrat beat Shiropa Routh of North Bengal 11-4, 10-12, 11-9, 9-11, 11-6 in a see-saw first round battle and the experienced Manjunath Anargya of Karnataka struggled before subduing her Maharashtra rival Samruddi Kulkarni 11-7, 10-12, 11-8, 6-11, 11-6.