Vadodara, January 10: When the main draw tends to be of 64 players in all four categories of nationals, the singles events are bound to be weary and tedious. And when common players compete in singles as well as doubles, the misery for paddlers is complete. Yet, they are always game for the arduous journey as one witnessed in the ongoing 11Even Sports 78th Junior and Youth National Championships at the SAMA Indoor Complex here today.

In fact, there was no respite even for the top eight seeds in Junior Boys section as 56 qualifiers joined them in Stage 2 knockout phase. This meant that none of the seeded players was accorded first-round byes. On the other hand, the Junior Girls were lucky and the top eight received the largesse and they will play their second round.

There were as many as seven matches in Junior Boys that went down to the wire and, in comparison, only five matches in Junior Girls were fully stretched.

Ask fourth-seed Jeet Chandra of West Bengal and he would vouch for the weariness when he took on Delhi’s Shubh Goel. Jeet, a top player, struggled to get his rhythm going even as Shubh ran up a 2-1 lead to put pressure on his West Bengal rival. But, Jeet stopped the Delhi boy then and there, taking his next two games for 8-11, 11-7, 5-11, 11-9, 11-2 win. Similarly, Karnataka’s Nikhil Nandha stretched West Bengal’s Soham Bhattacharya before bowing out 8-11, 11-7, 11-9, 7-11, 6-11.  

Akash Chowdhury, also of West Bengal, met his match in Gaurav Lohapatre of Maharashtra who, when down 0-2, made the impossible possible to take two games on the trot to put Akash in some sort of trouble. But the West Bengal lad overcame adversaries to win 11-1, 11-6, 9-11, 9-11, 11-9. Telangana’s Ali Mohammed, too, felt the earth moving from under his feet before he subdued Tanmay Choukse of MP 10-12, 11-3, 11-6, 7-11, 11-3.

But Akash Pal of West Bengal would be proud to have tamed PSPBA’s Harsh Shrivastava 12-10, 11-9, 9-11, 10-12, 17-15—the decider witnessing six deuces and five match-points being lost by the eventual winner. Tamil Nadu’s Ramesh Santhosh Kumar dragged his first-round match to the decider after leading 2-1, to win 4-11, 12-10, 11-8, 5-11, 11-4. Delhi’s Hardik Khurana sent Sai Tejesh of Telangana packing 11-6, 10-12, 11-7, 3-11, 11-5 in an interesting battle.

In Junior Girls, Tulika Roy, after leading 2-0, let her Delhi opponent some liberty which could have put paid to her ambitions. Luckily, Tulika managed to put it across Aanchal Malhotra winning the close first round encounter 11-5, 11-9, 5-11, 9-11, 11-9.

But the best match tuned out to be the duel between Maharashtra’s Diya Chitale and Telangana’s Varuni Jaiswal which the latter won 8-11, 11-9, 11-9, 4-11, 12-10. Yet, it was a shock defeat for Swastika Ghosh of Maharashtra against West Bengal’s Premangi Ghosh who won 7-11, 8-11, 11-6, 15-13, 11-7. Swastika has a zonal title against her name while Premangi is relatively a newcomer. Telangana’s Naina too struggle before overcoming a resolute Spoorthy Venkatesh of Karantaka 4-11, 11-6, 11-8, 10-12, 11-6.

Results (Round of 64):

Junior Boys: Manav Thakkar (PSPB) bt Samrat Chakraborty (NB) 3-0, Mandar Hardikar (Mah) bt Kaushal Bhatt (Guj) 3-0, Akash Chowdhury (WB) bt Gaurav Lohapatre (Mah) 3-2, Ali Mohammad (Telg) bt Tanmay Choukse (MP) 3-2, Yashansh Malik (Del0 bt Tushar Pandey (Ukd) 3-0, Akash Pal (WB) bt Harsh Shrivastava (PSPBA) 3-2, Jash Dalvi (Mah) bt Aditya Dey (ASM) 3-0, Wesley Do Rosario (Goa) 3-0, Shivaji Roy (Jkd) bt Abhishek Pathak (UP) 3-1, Ramesh S Kumr (TN) bt Neeraj Raj (Kar) 3-2, Shivjit Singh Lamba (Del) bt Siril Saroj (Telg) 3-0, Ishaan Hingorani (Guj) bt Avijit Basu (WB) 3-1, Harshavardhan Lahoti (Telg) bt Jai Jain (Har) 3-0, Sameer Pandey (PSPBA) bt Suranjit Dey (Meg) 3-1, Shaurya Pednekar (Mah) bt Akash Barua (ASM) 3-1, Jeet Chandra (WB) bt Shubh Goel (Del) 3-2, Prth Virmani (Del) bt Lakhvinder Sing (Ukd) 3-0, Asif Khan (Raj) bt Piyush Sagar (TN) 3-0, Sridhar Harikrishna (Telg) bt Agniv Bhaskar (ASM) 3-1, Aniruddha Marathe (Mah) bt Shubhadeep Das (WB) 3-1, Soham Bhattacharya (WB) bt Nikhil Nandha (Kar) 3-2, Raegan Albuquerque (Mah) bt Amaan M.Rahman (CBSE) 3-0, Payas Jain (Del) bt Mainik Das (NB) 3-0, Anukram Jain (PSPBA) bt Sanat Bokil (Mah) 3-0, Snehit Suravajjula (Telg) bt vikas Sheoran (Har) 3-0, Shubham Ambre (Mah) bt Jayabrata Bhattacharjee 9NB) 3-1, Alberto Lrruata (Miz) bt Angad Singh Chhabra (Del) 3-0, Sarthak Seth (UP) bt Krishna Sundar (Kar) 3-0, Rounak Mazumdar (WB) bt Shrikrishna Arunachalam (TN) 3-1, Hardik Khurana (Del) Sai Tejesh (Telg) 3-2, Chinmaya Somaiya (PSPBA) bt Hardik Paliwal (UP) 3-0, Manush Shah (Guj) bt Hrishikesh Malhotra (Mah) 3-0.

Junior Girls: Jitakhee Mazumdar (ASM) bt Shreya Ghosh (WB) 3-0, Deepika Neelakandan (TN) bt Rittika Kundu (NB) 3-1, Srushti Haleangadi (Mah) bt Suhana Saini (Har) 3-0, V. Laasya (Telg) bt Vanshika Sachar (Del) 3-1, Tulika Roy (WB) bt Aanchal Malhotra (Del) 3-2, Manasi Chiplunkar (Mah) w/o B. Nagasravani (AP) 3-0, Anjali Rohilla (Har) bt Neha Kumari (NB) 3-0, Ananya Basak (ODS) bt Shrubabati Moitra (WB) 3-1, Varuni Jaiswal (Telg) bt Diya Chitale (Mah) 3-2, Shruti Amrute (Mah) bt Sakshi Chaudhry (HP) 3-0, Vanshika Bhrgava (Del) bt Trisha Gogoi (ASM) 3-1, Nikita Sarkar (NB) w/o Kajol Ramjali (AP) 3-0, V. Saasya (Telg) bt Eesha Joshi (Mah) 3-1, Tanisi Kirtani (Goa) bt Srishti Gupta (Del) 3-1, Abhinaya Ramesh (TN) bt Adrija Sarmah (ASM) 3-1, Surbhi Patwari (WB) bt Pranitha Garlapati (Telg) 3-0, Ishita Gupta(Del) bt Chhavi Singh (Raj) 3-0, Priyanka Sarkar (NB) bt Kausha Bhairapure (Guj) 3-1, Diksha Biswas (NB) bt Renuka Aswani (Ker) 3-1, Premangi Ghosh (WB) Swastika Ghosh (Mah) 3-2, Selenadeepthi Selvakumar (TN) bt Gargee Goswami (ASM) 3-0, Naina (Telg) bt Spoorthi Venkatesh(Kar) 3-2, Amiesha Dhall (Del) bt Aditi Sinha (Mah) 3-0, Puja Paul (NB) bt Trisha Paul (Har) 3-2.