Gandhidham, October 12: Showcasing Devesh Karia’s maiden men’s singles title in the just-concluded Central Zone event—a first for Gujarat, too—and cashing in on Karia’s home-grown fan club popularity, tables have been laid for the Indian Oil National Ranking (West Zone) Table Tennis Championships commencing here at the Kachchh District Table Tennis Association indoor stadium from tomorrow.

Karia, who may have earned a position in the top-eight list after his recent showing, will not make his appearance until the fifth day of the championships here, presuming he is among top eight seeds that get direct entry in the main draw. Yet, the craze to see him in action at home could be the cornerstone for the local spectators as well as the organizers.

The championships will be formally inaugurated at 5 p.m. by Deepak Kumar Meghani, IPS, with D.K. Sharma, general manager, Gujarat State Office, IOCL, as chief guest in place, said Haresh Sangtani, honorary secretary of Gujarat State Table Tennis Association. Incidentally, Sangtani is also the secretary of the Kachchh District Table Tennis Association. The championships are jointly conducted by the GSTTA and KDTTA.

The only district to own a stadium, the KDTTA will be hosting the third event in their 18-month existence. The level of interest among participants, numbering nearly 700 competing in 10 events—Cadet, Sub-Junior, Junior, Youth and Senior—will be put to stern test in the searing heat. The day temperature soaring to 38-39 degree Celsius outside could increase a few more degrees inside the venue.

But unmindful of the heat, the Cadet and Junior Boys and Girls, who are already here, have started practicing for the qualifiers staring tomorrow morning. With the finals in Cadet and Sub-Junior sections slated for Tuesday, four medals will be on offer at the end of the second day.

The day will also see the Junior Boys and Junior Girls beginning their qualification matches with the main draw starting a day later. As is customary, the qualification matches in senior sections will begin on the third day evening with the top-eight ranked players making their presence from Day 4.

All those competed at the Central Zone championships in all categories have confirmed their entries which have crossed the 1,000-mark yet again in the second event of the season. Among the women’s singles entries, the lone absentee will be K. Shamini. The Chennai-based paddler, who had to play in the qualifiers at Indore for the first time in a long period, has opted out of the Gandhidham championships citing personal reasons.

Shamini, who could not progress beyond the quarterfinals, will have to go through the qualification process yet again whenever she makes her appearance in any of the zonals. However, her absence could benefit most others like it happened in the men’s singles.

The likes of A. Sharath Kamal, Soumyajit Ghosh, A. Amalraj and Harmeet Desai chose to opt out of the Central Zone championships and it was a godsend opportunity for G. Sathiyan, national champion Sanil Shetty, Nitin Thiruvengadam, L. Sathiswaran and Karia to prosper and give their best shots at the title. In fact, all of them did try but it was Karia who, with his consistent performance, won the crown.

Similarly, the absence of Shamini could be a blessing in disguise for those aspiring paddlers, including the promising Divya Deshpande, who will play here after skipping the Central event. It is another matter that the youngsters in the women’s section could not utilize the opportunity and the 31-year-old Mouma Das, with her outstanding performance, went on to win the title.

The championships will see competition manager Ganeshan Neelakantan Iyer marshalling his resources with A.S. Kler as chief referee and Atul Dubey, officiating as the latter’s deputy. They will all be provided support by 40 experienced umpires drawn from different parts of the country.