Gandhidham, October 14: Call it home advantage for Gujarat’s Manush Shah or was it a rank poor performance from Telangana’s Snehit Suravajjula, the day belonged to Shah in the Sub-Junior Boys quarterfinals of the National Ranking (West Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the KDTTA indoor stadium here today.

Shah defeated Snehit 11-9, 11-2, 11-7 in what turned out to be a one-sided quarterfinals affair. But it will not be a smooth sailing for Shah as he will be running into top-seed Manav Thakkar in the semifinals later this evening. Thakkar downed Shaurya Pednekar of Maharashtra 5-11, 11-8, 11-9, 11-2.

Incidentally, Thakkar had won the Central Zone championships title at Indore only the last week and is in good form despite losing his first game to Pednekar today.

Shah was on a firm footing when he took against Snehit in the first game that saw some very good rallies and crucial points going the Shah way. But the win had upped the confidence of the local boy who simply rode over his Telangana opponent in the second without allowing him any leeway. Hitting a nice rhythm and making fewer mistakes than his rival, Shah completed the task rather easily in the third to move into the semifinals.

As for Thakkar, he began sluggishly and lost the first game meekly. But he came back wonderfully to demolish his opponent even as he stamped his authority in the next three to wrap it up quickly.

In Sub-Junior Girls, Karnataka’s Archana Kamal won over her state mate Kushi Viswanath 11-2, 12-10, 11-2 in the quarterfinals and she was joined in the semifinals by Rajasthan’s Priyanka Pareek, who beat Surbhi Patwari (WB) 3-0, Maharashtra’s Payal Bohra, who downed Karnataka’s Ramesh Medhini 11-5, 11-2, 11-3, and Shrushti Halengadi of Mahrashtra. The Maharashtrain accounted for Tanishi Kirtani of Goan in a tough battle which lasted for nearly 35 minutes. Shrushti won 11-3, 9-11, 6-11, 11-9, 11-9.

In Cadet Boys, Central Zone title winner Payas Jain from Delhi bowed out in the quarterfinals, losing to Jayabrata Bhattacharjee of North Bengal 11-7, 9-11, 11-9, 11-8. In other quarterfinals Alberto Lrruata of PSPB beat Dev Shroff (Mah) 3-0, Satyamgiri Gupta (UP) had it easy against Varun Shankar of Telangana 11-5, 11-8, 11-7 and Jeho H. of PSPB also defeated Sourajit Halder of West Bengal 11-3, 11-8, 11-2.

In Cadet Girls quarterfinals, Maharashtra’s Swatika beat Tamil Nadu’s Sharmitha Srinivasan 11-8, 8-11, 11-5, 11-6, West Bengal’s Munmun Kundu won against Delhi’s Tamanna Gulshan 13-11, 11-7, 12-10, Maharashtra’s Diya Chitale beat TN’s Nithyashree Mani 11-8, 16-14, 11-4 and Delhi’s Vanshika Bhargava downed Harayana’s Suhana Saini 11-3, 11-9, 11-8.

Meanwhile, the Junior Boys and Junior Girls qualifiers began and their main draw events will begin tomorrow.