Jaipur, July 28: Rio Games qualifier Manika Batra, seeded second here, No. 3 seed Reeth Rishya along with sixth and seven seeds K. Shamini and Shruti Amrute bowed out in the women’s singles pre-quarterfinals of the AAI 46th All India Inter-Institutional Championships at the SMS Indoor Stadium here today.

Of the four women that fell by the wayside, three belonged to the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) while Shruti represents Air India.

As if this was not enough, No. 4 seed Harmeet Desai and No. 7 Subhajit Saha followed suit along with eight-seeded Soumyajit Ghosh, who preferred to give a walkover to RBI’s Raj Mondal, rather than putting his chances in the Rio Olympics at jeopardy.

“Having practised with DHS (Double Happiness) balls, which will be used during the Games, for the last three months I realized during team championships that the ball used here (for the tournament) was different in more ways than one. With our departure to Rio scheduled in the next couple of days, adapting to the one used here and again reverting to DHS in a few days’ time could mar my performance at Rio,” said Ghosh.

“I was in a real predicament. Keeping the interests of the country ahead I decided to give a walkover rather than continuing. Winning or losing here will not make much of a difference to me but what is significant is how best I can perform at the Games,” explained Ghosh on his walkover.      

However, another Rio qualifier A. Sharath Kamal, who entered the quarterfinals, decided to continue. His reason for the continuation, despite the difficulty in adjusting to the ball, was that he wanted to play because of his responsibility. “You always run a risk of switching over from one ball to another.  I was prepared to take the risk because I have a responsibility and I was competing only in singles here,” said a matured Sharath.

He, too, agreed that his performance at Rio was more important than winning the title here. “It hardly matters whether or not I can win here. But I certainly would want do well at the Games,” added the Indian table tennis icon.

Meanwhile, two youngsters Manav Thakkar and Suthirtha Mukherjee surprised everyone with sterling performances with upset wins over Harmeet Desai and K. Shamini, respectively. Playing their attacking games, Manav tamed Harmeet 4-1 (4-11, 11-2, 11-4, 11-7, 11-4) while Suthirtha went for a straight games kill of Shamini (11-8, 11-9, 13-11, 11-6). Both Harmeet and Shamini were unable to counter their rampaging opponents.

Even as fifth seed Mouma Das entered the quarterfinals with a laboured 4-2 (11-6, 11-4, 11-6, 11-13, 9-11, 11-9) triumph over AAI’s Frenaz Chipia, second seeded Manika would love to put behind her 1-4 pre-quarter loss to Mousumi Paul, who won 11-6, 11-6, 11-6, 6-11, 11-6). Both Mouma and Manika were, understandably, watched with keen interests by their peers and spectators.

Mouma mustered courage and experience to outwit Frenaz while Manika was out of sorts against Mousumi and was on the back foot from start to finish.

The men and women’s singles quarterfinals are slated for later this evening and it would be interesting to note how far the two Games-bound survivors—Sharath and Mouma—go in the championships.