LUCKNOW, JANUARY 24: The thin line that separates the pretenders from performers was re-drawn as three of last year’s quarterfinalists in the women’s section of the 73rd Senior National and Inter-State Table Tennis Championships bowed out of medal reckoning at the SAI sub-centre indoor hall here on Tuesday. While there are every indication of the institutional teams making rapid progresses, thanks to the presence of top Indian paddlers in their ranks, the decline of state teams is a concern that cannot be wished away.

Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will now have to be contended just playing positional matches while the rest will just go after the throats of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB), the title holder, and the teams like West Bengal, North Bengal, Maharashtra A, Tamil Nadu and the Airport Authority of India.

Gujarat’s prowess over the years was known. But the way their women went after Delhi, blanking out the latter, shows the determination of the team as well as the dipping form of Delhi, who lost 0-3, particularly when Manika Batra choosing to play for PSPB. So, it was not surprising that the Andhra team also went out of reckoning when two of their main girls, Karnam Spoorthy and Nikhat Bhanu, preferred their institution Airports Authority of India (AAI) over their state. Ironically, Andhra lost 0-3 to AAI.

Though Jharkhand lost to Maharashtra B for a similar margin, the credit must be given to the latter for putting it across with two national-ranked players in Pooja Sahastrabudhe and Prajakta Tipale taking control of the proceedings.

Sanya Sehgal put up a great show against Gujarat’s Frenaz Chipia but the Delhi girl could not press hard for a win as she lost 10-12, 11-13, 9-11. Yet Nikita Rautela fought very well against Nargis Malubhai only to lose 2-3 (18-16, 8-11, 9-11, 11-8, 10-12. This left very little room for Delhi to make a come back even though Esha Monga put her best foot forward and managed to take game off Sapna Sharma. And that was all she could do as she lost 11-6, 9-11, 8-11, 11-13.

As for the other teams, PSPB blanked out Chandigarh 3-0, Tamil Nadu accounted for Chattisgarh 3-0, Maharashtra A downed Uttar Pradesh 3-0, North Bengal defeated Madhya Pradesh 3-0 and West Bengal beat Assam 3-0. All these pre-quarterfinals had a pattern to the performance of stronger teams in the championships, which should be an eye-opener for the losers who are very far away from reality.

In men’s category, there is a classic case of that of Tamil Nadu who should have walked away with a 3-0 verdict over Assam struggled before subduing them 3-2. But the problem was one of Tamil Nadu’s own creation after they had dropped both G. Sathiyan and L. Satheeswaran from the team because the two failed to participate in the state meet. Tamil Nadu will learn their lesson the hard way when they run into Haryana in the quarters.

But the other top teams maintained their form and position intact to move into the quarterfinals.