Raipur, January 11: Petroleum’s Soumyadeep Roy was the lone seed to fall by the wayside in the men’s section and in the women’s category it was Delhi’s Manika Batra and PSPB’s Madhurika Patkar who made their exit. But for the three, all other seeds entered their singles quarterfinals of the 74th National Table Tennis Championships here on Friday.

Soumyadeep Roy, seeded No 3, played an aggressive game but the unseeded Aman Balgu matched him to cash in on the chances. In fact, Balgu proved to be more consistent of the two with several winners to his credit which helped him overcome the experienced Roy. Balgu won 3-2 (12-10, 9-11, 12-10, 11-7, 4-11, 12-10).

Despite trailing 2-4, Roy seemed well on course to extend Balgu in the sixth but several unforced errors by the erratic Roy foreclosed his options as Balgu won another extended game to seal Roy’s fate.

Earlier, No. 4 seed Madhurika lost to unseeded Neha Aggarwal 3-4 in the pre-quarterfinals while No. 6 Manika Batra was dumped by another unseeded Karnam Spoorthy from Andhra in the first round of the main draw. Spoorthy won 4-1 (8-11, 13-11, 11-7, 11-8, 12-10).

If Madhurika had everything going for her until the sixth game for Neha, the turnaround happened just after that. Playing the mind game Delhi girl outwitted her rival in the sixth, using her topspin serves and return winners. Put down by the sudden attack, Mahdurika made several errors helping Neha on her way in the game.

Using the forehand strokes well and countering Madhurika’s blocks well, Neha grew in confidence in the seventh in spite of the PSPB woman launching calculated attacks on the flanks. The game went into deuces a few times before Neha held her nerves to win it 12-10. Neha had earlier beaten Madhurika in the team event yesterday and that eventually must have played on the PSPB girl’s mind.

As for Manika, who lent a helping hand in Delhi’s title win on Thursday, was sent packing by Spoorthy. The girl from Andhra had been her nemesis and troubled almost all big names, including Manika, in the past. And today was no different as Manika, after taking the first game at 11-8, found her returns going haywire, particularly against Spoorthy’s serve. In fact, the Andhra girl used the pimple rubber to her advantage but was outwitted by Maharashtr’s Mallika Bhandarkar in the pre-quarterfinals. Mallika won 11-13, 11-9, 9-11, 11-8, 10-12, 15-13, 11-9.

The quarterfinals in both the sections are slated for later tonight.

The Results:

Men (PQF): Soumyajit Ghosh bt L. Satheeswaran 4-1, Jubin Kumar bt Saurav Chakravarthy 4-3, A. Amalraj bt Sourav Saha 4-0, Harmeet Desai bt T. Nitin 4-0, Aman Balgu bt Soumyadeep Roy 4-2, A. Sharath Kamal bt Jignesh Jaiswal 4-0, Devesh Karia bt G. Sathiyan 4-2, Sanil Shetty bt Sougatha Sarkar 4-1.

Women (PQF): Poulami Ghatak bt Takeme Sarkar 4-2, Mousmi Pal bt Mamata Prabhu 4-3, Divya Deshpande bt Reeth Rishya 4-3, Neha Aggarwal bt Madhurika Patkar 4-3, Ankita Das bt Soumi Mandal 4-1, Mallika Bhandarkar bt K. Spoorthy 4-3, Pooja Sahasrabhudhe bt Ayhika Mukherjee 4-3, K. Shamini bt Suthirtha Mukherjee 4-2.