Gandhidham, October 17: If top-seeded G. Sathiyan was on a roll, second-seed Sanil Shetty was definitely not in the cozy zone in the men’s singles quarterfinals of the Indian Oil National Ranking (West Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the KDTTA indoor stadium here today.

For PSPB’s Sathiyan it was a smooth sailing into the semifinals when he outfoxed teammate Soumyajit Roy 4-1 in just 25 minutes, but Shetty took nearly 45 minutes to overcome Abhishek Yadav 4-2 in what was a left-handers’ quarterfinals.

The other quarterfinals saw RSPB’s Anirban Nandi unleashing a constant attack to down AAI’s Sushmit Sriram 4-1 and Subhajit Saha scored a similar win over West Bengal’s Anrban Ghosh in what was a mismatch.

National champion Shetty was in trouble waters when he made far too many mistakes 7-4, allowing Abhishek level the score 7-7. From there, the game saw points being exchanged with regularity and at 10-all, Abhishek netted the ball. Getting a life, Shetty went 11-10 up but soon Abhishek made it 11-11. Fortunately for Shetty, he took a point off Abhishek’s serve and served out to win the sixth game and the match.

But for this match, all other quarterfinals didn’t make any interesting watching except on odd occasions when the losing quarterfinalists made serious attempts. However, the eventual winners were too good and played with purpose.

After top-seed Poulomi Ghatak’s exit yesterday, it was the turn of No. 2 seed Pooja Sahasrabudhe today bow out in the women’s singles quarterfinals. The PSPB girl, running a bad patch here, lost to Ankita Das 2-4. In fact, there was a time when Pooja was out in the dumps losing three straight games to Ankita. But her fighting qualities came to the fore when she recovered to take the next two games at 11-9 and 12-10 to give some jitters to Ankita. But the girl from Siliguri made a lot of amends in the next, though extended a bit, to win it and the match.

In the first quarterfinal in the afternoon, PSPB’s Suthirtha Mukherjee had to make a lot of ground to beat qualifier Charvi Kawle of Maharashtra, who had ousted Poulomi yesterday. Charvi was the odd player out in a PSPB bunch in the quarterfinals. Suthirtha’s day was made when, after being 1-3 down, fought well to win all good points and level the score. In the decider, again Charvi goofed up with a 7-3 and 8-4 lead as it was creditable for Suthirtha to have won crucial points to wrap up the last game after several deuces.

No. 3 seed Mouma Das, as usual, was in her up-and-down zone before regrouping herself to beat Madhurika Patkar. Mouma had to win three straight games, fourth to sixth, to sew it up but Manika Batra hardly wasted a sweat against Mousumi Paul. The girl from Delhi won in straight games.

The Youth Boys and Youth Girls quarterfinals have been scheduled for a late evening start as, on the concluding daytomorrow, thehe morning session tomorrow will feature semifinals in all sections, followed by the finals in the afternoon.

Results:

Men’s Singles: Quarterfinals: G. Sathiyan (PSPB) bt Soumyadeep Roy (PSPB) 4-1 (12-14, 14-12, 11-9, 11-6, 11-6), Anirban Nandi (RSPB) bt Sushmit Sriram (AAI) 4-1 (5-11, 11-7, 11-3, 13-11, 11-5), Subhajit Saha (PSPB) bt Anirban Ghosh (WB) 4-1 (11-9, 7-11, 11-2, 11-5, 11-4), Sanil Shetty (PSPB) bt Abhishek Yadav (PSPB) 4-2 (11-7, 11-6, 9-11, 8-11, 11-3, 13-11).

Women’s Singles: Quarterfinals: Suthirtha Mukherjee (PSPB) bt Charvi Kawle (Mah) 4-3 (8-11, 7-11, 11-6, 7-11, 11-9, 11-8, 16-14), Mouma Das (PSPB) bt Madhurika Patkar (PSPB) 4-2 (11-8, 9-11, 2-11, 11-7, 11-6, 11-9), Manika Batra (PSPB) bt Mousumi Paul (PSPB) 4-0 (15-13, 11-9, 15-13, 11-5), Ankita Das (PSPB) bt Pooja Sahasrabudhe (PSPB) 4-2 (11-8, 11-1, 11-4, 9-11, 10-12, 13-11).