Thane, October 11: Harmeet Desai and Pooja Sahasrabudhe emerged the men and women’s champions at the Mayor Cup National Ranking (West Zone) Table Tennis Championships here this evening.

Desai, who had won the Central Zone title last week at Gandhidham, showed great form to beat his Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) rival Sourav Saha 4-1 in the singles final, while Pooja, whose title came after a day’s real hard work, it was a sweet experience against another PSPB rival Madhurika Patkar 4-3.

Sourav Saha, however, made up for his men’s title loss later by winning the Youth Boys singles fnal when he beat Abhishek Yadav 11-9, 11-8, 11-5, 6-11, 12-10. Rising star Suthirtha Mukherjee from West Bengal accounted for Nikhat Bhant of Airports Authority of India 4-1 to win the Youth Girls crown.

Abhishek Yadav defeated Lalrin Puia in straight games of 11-8, 11-5, 11-8, 11-6 to take the Junior Boys title while another West Bengal girl Priyadarshini defeated her North Bengal opponent Anuska Dutta 11-8, 11-4, 11-6, 5-11, 6-11, 11-6 in a hard-fought final to win the Junior Girls crown.

With Desai in the best form of his life, it seemed a cakewalk for him against Sourav Saha as he won 11-4, 8-11, 11-5, 11-4,11-9. In fact, Desai should have won in straight games, but Saha made a remarkable comeback in the second game to give some sort of a fight. Desai, however, went full throttle in the third taking it 11-5 and from there it seemed a mere formality, though he won the fifth game with the minimum margin.

Desai, naturally happy after the back-to-back titles, said he kept things as simple as possible. “I know his (Sourav’s) game and I was lucky to be consistent with my aggressive game,” he said.

Though Desai had an easy semifinal outing against Delhi’s Utkarsh Gupta, which the former won 4-0, Saha was stretched to 4-2 win by Soumyadeep Roy in the other men’s semifinal.

Unlike the men’s singles, Pooja had a lot at stake in the women’s final against Madhurika Patkar, both hailing from Mumbai. It was an excellent fight with none yielding even an inch to the other. But what made the difference was Pooja’s perseverance and grit that she showed in winning the crucial points in the match 11-4, 11-13, 9-11, 3-11, 11-7, 12-10, 14-12.

In fact, Madhurika was on a kind of rampage despite losing the first game as she took the next three to go 3-1 up. But from there we saw a different Pooja, who upped the ante with her excellent attacking game plan which ultimately forced Madhurika into several unforced errors. Once pushed to the corner, Madhurika could not come to terms with Pooja’s forehand as the latter kept her date with destiny to win the next three, the last two with extended points.

An elated Pooja admitted that she played the crucial points well. “I was down and out but won those crucial points in the last two games. I was confident after winning against Shamini earlier this morning,” she said.

Madhurika, on the other hand, admitted to her backpedalling and failing to cash in on the situation. “I should have won the sixth game,” she rued her mistakes.

Earlier in the semifinals, Madhurika had accounted for Ankita Das 4-1 while Pooja defeated national champion K. Shamini 4-3 in another gruelling encounter.