Dharwad, August 23: Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) men were at the doorsteps of retaining team championship title when they beat Airports Authority of India (AAI) 3-1 in the first semi-finals at the District Indoor Hall here today. They were joined in the final by Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) men who were made to struggle a bit by a resolute Food Corporation of India (FCI) in the other semifinal. RSPB won 3-1.

Like their men, PSPB women too entered the final beating Indian Bank 3-0. In the other semifinal AAI defeated RSPB 3-1 to enter their second final. They had beaten the same opponents at Burnpur (West Bengal) for their maiden entry two years ago. Both the finals are slated for tomorrow afternoon.

PSPB men, for strange reasons had benched both Soumyadeep Roy and Anthony Amalraj, and preferred youngsters Sanil Shetty, Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet Desai. No doubt, southpaw Sanil played an excellent match that saw a few long rallies and topspin play against Nithin Thiruvengadam to win 11-6, 8-11, 11-5, 11-9. But Sanil, with bagful of tricks, put PSPB 1-0. Then Ghosh accounted for Raj Mondal, who only this year graduated from Youth Boys, 11-8, 11-6, 14-12. Harmeet Desai lost to Sushmit Sriram, AAI’s main player, 10-12, 11-4, 11-9, 5-11, 9-11. Desai was comfortably leading 2-1 before Sriram regrouped himself to outwit his opponent. But Ghosh beat Thiruvengadam 3-1 to wrap it up for PSPB.

As for RSPB, they had everything going for them right from the start with Anirban Nandi leading 2-0 in the first rubber. But he let his opponent Sivananda Seshadri of FCI level 2-2 before winning with the least margin in the decider (11-9, 11-6, 3-11, 12-14, 11-9). Amal Balgu defeated Sarthak Gandhi in straight games, but in the third singles E. Prabhakaran could not go over FCI’s Samira Kumar who won 12-10, 9-11, 11-7, 11-7. It was left to a tired Nandi to do an encore and he accomplished the task beating Sarthak Gandhi 11-8, 6-11, 11-9, 8-11, 11-5.

The Petroleum women did not have to sweat it out much against an inexperienced Indian Bank. PSPB, led by national champion K. Shamini, just swept aside Indian 3-0 in double quick time in spite of both Shamini and Madhurika Patkar conceding a game each against Amrutha Pushpak and V. Sneha. Madhurika defeted Amrutha Pushpak 11-6, 11-4, 7-11, 12-10 and Shamini accounted for Senha 11-6, 11-4, 9-11, 11-5. Ankita Das, after leading the Youth girls’ team to win, joined the ranks with a thumping straight sets win of 11-5, 11-4, 11-4 over C.R. Harshavardhani.

For the Railways it was a second shock defeat in two years by AAI. Kritiwika Sinha Roy defeated veteran Anandita Chakraborty 11-5, 13-11, 11-9 and Nikhat Bhanu, despite severe pain on her shoulders, won over Takeme Sarkar 11-6, 11-2, 13-15, 11-5 to put AAI 2-0 up. Though S Krithicka lost her singles to Shreya Gosh in straight games, Kritwica made up for the loss with another excellent win over Takeme Sarkar (11-6, 11-8, 11-4).

PSPB win crown

As expected, PSPB Youth girls retained crown after a 3-2 hard-fought win over Airports Authority of India as Kritwika Sinha Roy and Ayhika Mukherjee managed to take a rubber each off Suthirtha Mukherjee and Manika Batra, respectively. But Ankita Das turned the heat on for PSPB, winning both her singles against Nikhat Bhanu and Kritwika which made the difference in the final analysis. Ankita beat Nikhat 12-10, 11-4, 14-12 and then downed Kritwika 11-3, 11-7, 12-14, 11-9. Earlier, Suthirtha Mukherjee lost to Kritwika 11-8, 7-11, 8-11, 11-5, 8-1, but the former made up with 11-9, 11-7, 12-14, 11-4 victory over Nikhat to seal the title.

RESULTS:

Men: Semi-finals: PSPB bt AAI 3-1, RSPB bt FCI 3-1; Quarterfinals: RSPB bt RBI 3-0, AAI bt LIC 3-0, PSPB bt Indian Audit 3-0, FCI bt Central Revenue 3-2; PQF: LIC bt Air India 3-0, FCI bt Ordnance Factories 3-0, RBI bt Defence Accounts 3-2, Indian Audit bt ESIC 3-2 (Four others teams—PSPB, RSPB, CRSCB and AAI—are directly seeded into QF).

Women: Semifinals: PSPB bt Indian Bank 3-0, AAI bt RSPB 3-1; QF: Indian Bank bt Dena Bank 3-1, RSPB bt Indian Audit 3-2, PSPB bt LIC 3-1, AAI bt Air India 3-2.

Youth Girls: AAI bt Indian Bank 3-1, PSPB bt RSPB 3-0, RSPB bt Air India 3-2, PSPB bt AAI 3-2.