SILIGURI, JANUARY 7: With three rounds to play on the penultimate day of the Indian Oil 73rd Junior and Youth National Table Tennis Championships, the schedule was, indeed, hectic for the paddlers here at the Municipal Corporation Indoor Stadium on Saturday.

Those who had the experience and stamina survived to live another day and play the quarterfinals while the lesser mortals fell by the wayside. The West Bengal and North Bengal boys and girls took their appointed place in the quarterfinals.

The match between No. 4 Raj Mondal of North Bengal and lowly-seeded L Satheeswaran of Tamil Nadu was the cynosure of all eyes, with the North Bengal boy winning the best-of-seven games in 6-11, 11-9, 11-9, 9-11, 9-11, 11-5, 11-2. With scores level at 3-all, every winning point by Mondal in the decider brought the stadium roof down with deafening applauses.

Earlier, there were a couple of shocking results as No. 3 Nitin V of PSPB in youth boys section and No. 3 Vidya N of Tamil Nadu bowed out in the second round. Nitin lost to Sameerakumar D of Tamil Nadu 11-8, 8-11, 11-3, 9-11, 13-15 while unseeded Shweta Parte of Maharashtra A sent Vidya packing 9-11, 11-9, 10-12, 5-11 in the second round. 

In youth girls’ second round, Reeth Rishya was fortunate to survive when she beat Kerala’s Seraha Jacob 11-5, 3-11, 11-9, 4-11, 11-7). Incidentally, all of Seraha’s matches went to the wire. But for this match, the domination of quality players in singles over those just made up the numbers through qualifications was complete.

In junior boys and girls pre-quarter finals, some seeded players were tested by their opponents but luckily they escaped unhurt. For instance, No. 4 Manika Batra was stretched by Sreeja A of Andhra which the former won 11-8, 10-12, 5-11, 11-6, 11-6, But in youth boys, Reeth Rishya of PSPB really had to struggle to win against Andhra’s Naina. Reeth won 8-11, 15-13, 11-5, 11-3.

Andhra’s Naina dropped a game in junior section but overcame a stubborn Jagruti Murbadkar of Maharashtra B to win 13-11, 11-7, 11-13, 11-5. The Andhra girl also accounted for PSPBA’s Anona Agarwal 11-5, 11-6, 11-6 to enter the round of 16. In comparison, the junior boys’ matches had some elements of surprises when lesser-known players extended their better-known rivals, with the fancied players winning 3-1 in most cases. However, West Bengal’s Pathikrit Roy had to fight his way back to move ahead with 11-7, 6-11, 11-3, 10-12, 11-4 victory against Karnataka’s Vedanth M Urs. So did Ravindra Kotiyan of Maharashtra-A against Shivam Singh for an 11-7, 3-11, 13-11, 10-12, 11-7 verdict. But the two were stopped in the second round by their opponents.