Pudhucherry, January 12: The Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) women’s team was the first one to enter the pre-quarterfinals of the 76th Senior Nationals, which began at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium here today.

Their men’s team, pooled with five teams in group A, had notched up two 3-0 wins against Odisha and Telangana in the morning and was very much on way to making the Stage 2 cut. But they have two more matches to play, one tonight and the second tomorrow, for a clear picture to emerge. Telengana, thought lost to PSPB, could be the second team to qualify for the main draw from the group.

As for PSPB women, they downed both Andhra Pradesh and Bihar with an identical margin of 3-0 and they executed the job against Bihar with the help of Poulami Ghatak, Mouma Das and K. Shamini while against Andhra they employed both Ankita Das and Manika Batra to prepare them for the battles ahead along with Shamini. In both cases, PSPB paddlers completed the act in quick time to sound out a grim warning to the others.

In group B, North Bengal beat Madhya Pradesh 3-0 and their paddlers are slated to take on Assam in their second match later tonight. But their passage into the pre-quarters is more or less sealed as they are expected to beat Assam.

Similarly, West Bengal from group C, Airports Authority of India and Telangana from group D, Delhi from group E have almost booked their stage 2 berths while with just one set of matches having been played in groups F, G and H, things will be clear only on the morrow on which all teams make the grade.

Karnataka on roll

However, the most interesting match of the afternoon was the one between Karnataka and Maharashtra B, last year’s quarterfinalist and group H leader. Karnataka, driven by the new forces Swetha Kumarvel and junior national champion Archana Kamath, upset Maharashtra B 3-2 in a lively league match.

Archana and Swetha provided Karnataka with a 2-0 lead, but Maharashtra B nullified it when Vedika Garg and Mallika Bhadarkar took beat Spoorthi Venkatashan and Archana, respectively, in the reverse singles. Mallika, in particular, had to bring out her best against Archana to win 4-11, 11-9, 4-11, 11-6, 14-12 to breathe life. But Swetha took care of Karnataka’s interest with a 11-9, 11-7, 11-13, 11-3 triumph over Devika Bhide.

This victory must put Karnataka in a better frame of mind and with matches against Kerala and Tripura they should seal their place in the pre-quarters. Maharashtra, despite their early loss, should look ahead to qualify as the second team from group H.

The men’s affairs are still far from clear as teams have played just two sets of matches with two each to go. However, the results so far indicate easy Stage 2 passage to all the fancied teams, leaving the contest for the second slots in each group to the rest in fray.

PSPB men lead group A with two wins while it is Delhi in group B, Gujarat in group C, Haryana in group D, Maharashtra A in group E and RSPB in group H. As for group F, the fight for the top two positions are among Maharashtra B, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh as they have a win each while the position in group G is similar to group F with Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and Karantaka having a victory each.