Rajkot, October 15: Top-seed Madhurika Patkar defeated Ankita Das 4-2 (11-8, 6-11, 11-7, 7-11, 11-9, 11-5) while Mousumi Paul sent fourth seed Manika Batra packing 4-3 (11-6, 5-11, 11-7, 10-12, 13-11, 7-11, 11-5) in a full marathon from the top half to enter the semifinals of the 11Even Sports National Ranking (West Zone) Table Tennis Championships here today.

From the bottom half, second-seeded Suthirtha Mukherjee and Mouma Das ended what was a dream journey for both Varuni Jaiswal’s journey 4-1 (11-7, 11-4, 11-7, 11-13, 11-6) and Amrutha Pushpak 4-2 (11-4, 11-6, 9-11,9-11, 11-7, 11-8).

In the first semifinal tomorrow, Madhurika will meet Mousumi Paul while in the second Mouma will clash with Suthirtha.  

THAKKAR BOWS OUT

In men’s singles quarterfinals, No. 1 seed G. Sathiyan and No. 4 seeded Sanil Shetty scored an identical 4-0 wins over two AAI boys, Vivek Bhargava and Ronit Bhanja to take their semifinal places while No. 3 seed Manv Thakkar went down fighting to Jubin Kumar 2-4 and Devesh Karia avenged Arjun Ghosh’s defeat of Harmeet Desai 4-1 to ensue at least one from Gujarat moved into the semifinals.

If Sathiyan won 11-4, 11-9, 11-5, 11-4 against Vivek and Sanil beat Ronit 11-6, 11-8, 11-6, 11-4, Jubin had to really toil before overcoming another Gujarat boy Manav 11-8, 12-10, 8-11, 11-9, 10-12, 11-8 and Devesh just dropped a game for his 11-7, 4-11, 12-10, 11-9, 11-3 triumph over Arjun.

The men’s singles first semifinal will see two right-handers Sathiyan and Sanil Shetty taking on each other while the second will witness two left-handers in Jubin Kumar and Devesh Karia tomorrow.

The men and women’s singles finals will be played tomorrow along with the Youth and Junior Boys and Girls finals.