Vadodara, November 22: As the top four women seeds—Akula Sreeja, Ayhika Mukherjee, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Moumita Datta—enjoyed first-round byes, other four seeds had a field day in the third UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships underway at the Sama Indoor Stadium here today.

But Diya Chitale (No. 5 seed), Mouma Das (No. 6), Poymantee Baisya (No. 7) and Archana Kamath (No. 8) had easy first-round outings against their opponents to join the Big Four.

Diya disposed of Shriya Anand of Tamil Nadu 11-9, 11-7, 11-2, Mouma Das accounted for Subhankrita Datta of NCOE 11-7, 12-10, 11-8, Poymantee Baisya struggled before outwitting Nikhat Banu of RBI 5-11, 11-7, 10-12, 11-7, 11-8, and Archana Kamath defeated Nandini Saha of West Bengal 11-6, 11-7, 11-2 enter the round of 32.

Except for Poymantee of the Railways, who went the distance by RBI's Nikhat, all the others warmed up quietly for the title race that begins tomorrow. Meanwhile, the men's singles, which is of 128 draws, will see two rounds today. However, the top 16 seeds will start their campaign only from tomorrow.

In Youth Girls U-19, top seed Suhana sailed into the quarterfinals, beating Anandita Luanwat of Maharashtra 11-8, 11-8, 9-11, 11-6, but No. 2 seed Sayali Wani of Maharashtra bowed out, losing to Haryana's Saanvi Dargan, who beat her 11-7, 11-7, 11-7, in the round of 32. However, she lost to Diya Brahmachari of West Bengal 3-1.

Third-seeded Jennifer Verghese also bit the dust, going down to the unseeded Prithoki Chakraborty of Haryana. The latter won the match 13-11, 9-11, 11-6, 13-11 and then accounted for Saanvi Roy of West Bengal 13-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9.

However, in Boys U-19, the top seeds Ankur Bhattacharya, Divyansh Srivastava, Preyesh Raj Suresh and Sarth Mishra stayed on course after their pre-quarterfinal matches.

Earlier,

Himansh Dhahiya stayed in the hunt after the first round before bowing out of reckoning in the Youth Boys U-19 section and losing to top-seed Ankur Bhattacharya. Himansh defeated Devansh Mudgal of TTFI 11-9, 3-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-9 in a thriller.

Even though the Gujarat boy won the first game and led 1-0, a resolute Devansh hit back to take advantage in the next two and go 2-1 up. But Himansh showed great character and levelled the score before upping the ante in the decisive fifth game to outsmart his TTFI counterpart.

Burhanuddin Malubhiwala, facing Rajkhowa Roy of Assam, lost 4-11, 7-11, 12-10 in the first round. Malubhiwala's late resistance only delayed the inevitable, as Roy was a runaway hit. Ayush Tanna went down to Delhi's Samarth Singh 11-4, 8-11, 4-11, 7-11.

Arnee Parmar, the lone Gujarat girl who made it to the knockout stage in the U-19 Girls yesterday, failed to sustain against Haryana's Prithoki Chakraborty. The latter, who won the first game, 6-11, 11-9, 11-7, 11-5, defeated Arnee. With the first-round loss, her campaign in the Girls' section came to a disappointing end.

The main draw events for men and women singles begin later this evening, with the qualification rounds ending in the afternoon. The qualifiers would join the seeded players in the fray. 

Meanwhile, two rounds of mixed doubles events were played today as the final is slated for tomorrow.