Vijayawada, Dec 6:
Akash Rajavelu took a game more than he would have wanted against Aarav Acharya of TTFI-1, but the Tamil Nadu boy posted a 3-1 to win the Youth Boys U-11 title in the final of the fourth UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships at the Ramakotaiah
Indoor Stadium here.
Ankolika Chakraborty from West Bengal took away the honours in the Girls’ final, beating Prateeti Paul Paul from her state 3-0 in the one-sided final held on Monday night.
As for the titles in the U-11 Youth Boys and Girls, M.Ashvajit from Tamil Nadu and Serosree Chakraborty owned them, beating their rivals in the finals, Sai Manavith of Andhra Pradesh and Siddhi Singh of Delhi, respectively. Ashvajit won 3-1, while Serosree made it a straight games
affair.
With Cyclone Michaung playing havoc and leaving huge trails of devastation in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, the local administration had declared a holiday for the public in Vijayawada today as a
precautionary measure. It forced the organisers and the competition department to reschedule and squeeze in the seventh day’s engagements a day in advance. Thanks to the parents, coaches and players’ cooperation, the events continued past midnight, with everybody returning to the hotels with satisfaction and the winners with their trophies and cheques.
But there was no laxity on the part of the rival players, who put up a good fight to earn their medals. For instance, Vatsal Dulkan of Haryana took Akash Rajavelu the distance in the semifinal, as did
Prateeti Paul of West Bengal by Tanisha Kalabhairav of Karnataka in the Girls’ last-four stages. Similarly, the quarterfinals in both sections witnessed interesting battles.
Local boy Sai Manavith played brilliantly in the final, but his opponent from Tamil Nadu was a notch better on the night.
Nevertheless, Manvith would be happy to have put his best foot forward in the title round.
In other words, it was a win-win situation for all the stakeholders – the players, TTFI and the APTTA, as the tournament threw up challenges, and all of them did an admirable job to see its completion.
