Vijayawada, Dec 3:
Top seeded Manav Thakkar defeated G. Sathiyan 4-2 to lift the men’s singles trophy in the fourth UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships at the Ramakotaiah Indoor Stadium here on Saturday.
Sathiyan,the second seed, conceded the match in the sixth game when he was trailing 0-2 because of a back spasm he was suffering from. Nevertheless, he fought and opened well and even led 2-1. But his backpain shot up sharply and rendered him helpless. Yet, the reigningnational champion carried on for a while before conceding in the sixthgame.
Archana Kamath had things going her way in the final against top seed Sreeja Akula. Leading 3-1, she failed to press home the advantage to win the second crown. But the credit must go to the RBI woman, who seized the moment in the fifth game and avoided two close calls in the sixth and seventh games to win her second title thisseason.
The second seed led 10-8 in the decider but failed to nail itdown when the opportunity presented. She allowed Sreeja fourconsecutive points from that position to claim the title.
After pooh-poohing an imminent threat in the quarterfinals, Archana decimated third seed Ayhika Mukherjee in the semifinals to win 4-0. The dominance of Archana was so much that sheneeded just 25 minutes to accomplish the win.
However, in contrast, she was down and out in the quarters against Anusha Kutumbale of AAI, trailing 0-2 down. Somehow, she gets fired up when down, as happened inVadodara. It was no different here. She perhaps visualised the Vadodaraquarterfinals and upped the ante to clip the wings of Anusha thoroughlyand post a 3-2 win.
Sreeja sailed into the final after somemidway struggles against fourth seed Sutirtha, winning her semifinal4-2. Sreeja led 3-0 but let Sutirtha come back strong and breathe downher neck at 2-3. However, the RBI woman wrapped it up in the sixth game.
Sixthseed Sharath was on course when he led 2-0 and 10-8 in the third gameo f his quarterfinal against Sourav Saha. But the 10-time nationalchampion squandered the advantage to bow out 2-3. Sharath hardly put anyeffort into his outing last night, and it must have even surprised thepaddler himself.
The U-19 Youth Boys final was the best in recent times, and in the all-UP showdown, Sarth Mishra dug himself out of a deep mire to win the title against Divyansh Srivastava.
