Bolpur, November 16: With Bengal paddlers, by and large, dominating the table tennis scene in the country it is but natural for the entire bunch to be present at the National Ranking (East Zone) Table Tennis Championships, getting underway here at the SAI indoor hall from tomorrow.

The likes of national champion Anthony Amalraj, institutional champion Soumyajit Ghosh, internationals Harmeet Desai, G. Sathiyan, Jubin Kumar in the men’s section and national champion Poulomi Ghatak, south zone champion K. Shamini, Mouma Das, Divya Deshpandey, Mamata Prabhu and Madhurika Patkar, to name a few, have already sent in their entries.

This makes the zonal even more interesting for all these players are battle-scarred and anyone is capable of upsetting the other on his or her day, particularly when a lot is at stake-the event carries a handsome prize purse and the winners in singles events are bound to pick up some vital ranking points.

Unfortunately, London Olympics participant Ankita Das will skip the event here, but she is most likely to participate in the subsequent national ranking championships, the north zone event at New Delhi from November 26.

Nevertheless, the East Zone championships will see over 500 players vying for honours in 10 categories-Men, Women, Youth Boys and Girls, Junior Boys and Girls, Sub-Junior Boys and Girls and Cadet Boys and Girls.

This championships as well as the next one at New Delhi will be equally important for the junior paddlers like Abhishek Yadav, Sudhanshu Grover and Utkarsh Gupta as well as Manika Batra, who will represent India at the World Junior Table Tennis Championships to be held in Hyderabad in December. These paddlers will not only get the important practice besides a good competition that will help them in the junior worlds.

The championships offer Rs. 5,76,700 as the total prize money and the men’s singles winner will take home Rs. 66,000 while the women’s winner Rs 55,000. All title-winners in other categories will also get a substantial purse.

The Cadet and sub-junior finals are slated for Sunday while Junior and Youth finals will take place on Tuesday. The women’s and men’s finals will be on the concluding day on Thursday in that order.

The equipments for the championships are provided by Stag Internationals.The championships will see about 40 technical officials, drawn from various states, taking care of the smooth conduct of the event under the guidance of H.K. Oberoi and C.L. Thade.