Thane, October 14: Forty-eight qualified for the Sub-Junior Boys second stage knockout phase in the Thane Mayor Cup 2015 National Ranking (West Zone) Table Tennis Championship played here at the Dadoji Kondev Stadium today.

The long-drawn day also witnessed Sub-Junior Girls event in 32 group but they will start Stage event, which is the main draw, only tomorrow.

The 48 qualifiers will join the eight ranked players in the main draw which is of 64 players. This means the top 16 players will get the advantage of byes and they will skip their first round, slated fortonight.

As for the seeding goes, Gujarat’s Manush Shah leads the chart and he is followed by Anukram Jain of PSPBA. Delhi’s Shivjit Singh Lamba retains his third spot in seeding while the fourth place has gone to H. Jeho, also of PSPB Academy. The other spots have been occupied by Do Rossario Wesley of Goa, Satyangiri Gupta of UP, L. Alberto of PSPBA, and Delhi’s Yashansh Malik is at the eighth place.

Though all these boys will miss the first round, 24 main draw matches are scheduled for tonight. In what was one of the largest entries from Maharashtra, only eight boys have made the grade to reach the main draw.

In Sub-Junior Girls, Prapti Sen of West Bengal leads the pack of eight top seeds, followed by Manushree Patil of Maharashtra, Swastika Ghosh, also of Maharashtra, Esther Johndurai of Tamil Nadu, Nikita Sarkar and Shurbabati Moitra, both West Bengal, Anusha Kutumbale of Madhya Pradesh and Tanisi Kirtani of Goa. They will be joined by the 32 qualifiers in the main draw to play one roundtonight—eight matches are slotted for the late evening.

The Cadet Girls qualifiers saw 24 making the cut from as many groups but it will be a simple draw of 32 girls, including the top eight who didn’t have to exert themselves today. However, they will be playing the first round matches of the second stage tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, the Cadet Boys qualification rounds are on with the participants having to play three round today. With all four sections competing in the first day of the six-day proceedings, the schedule is slightly overcrowded in a punishing weather as all the boys and girls have to play a minimum of two rounds while some three.

The matches at Thane are played at two adjacent halls on 14 tables in order to overcome the rush of entries which had reached more than 1200.  All in all, it was a harsh and trying day for all, including the officials.