New Delhi, August 1: As expected Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) topped group A with a clean slate, beating FCI and Ordinance Factory Sports Control Board with an identical margin of 3-0 and sounded a huge warning to the rest of teams in the LPS Bossard 47th All India Inter-Institutional Championships, which began at the Table Tennis Foundation hall here today.

It was business as usual for Airports Authority of India in group B as they defeated LIC and All India Electricity Board 3-0, respectively to top their group. RBI accounted for ESIC 3-1 and bet Ministry of Communications and IT 3-0 in group C. RSPB in group D retained the top slot with 3-0 wins over Defence Accounts and Department of Atomic Energy.

In group E, Canara Bank struggled past Air India 3-2 while it was a 3-0 cakewalk against BSNL and in the last group F, which consists of four teams, Indian Audit emerged on top with 3-2 triumph over Central Revenue and then beat both Air Force Sports Control Board and Major Ports Control Board 3-0 to move into the second stage. The second teams that qualified include FCI, IC, ESIC, Defence Accounts, Air India and Central Revenue.

With the top four teams getting first round byes, PSPB, AAI, RBI and RSPB will have the luxury of some rest before resuming their intense battle for the team title from second round onwards.

On the distaff side, it was a struggle for the PSPB team to begin with. However, three match points loss to Sanya Sehgal of Indian Audit against former national champion Poulami Ghatak meant a lease line for the champion side as they went on the strength of Manika Batra, who equalled the score after Archana Kamath went down to Swetha Kumaravel 5-11, 8-11, 11-7, 11-5, 10-12.

In the third rubber, Sanya was sitting pretty in the decider and had three match points but she squandered them to let Poulami off the hook as she won three deuces 11-9, 7-11, 11-3, 8-11, 15-13. Then Manika accounted for Swetha in her reverse singles to shut the door on Indian Audit. But for this stuttering start for PSPB, other women teams went through the motions to post easy wins. Despite one more round remaining to be played tomorrow, one does not see much of a change in the script of top teams qualifying for the second round. As of now, PSPB with two wins, like most others, are through to the second stage. But a clear picture on the second teams will be known only tomorrow.

But the story of the day could well be the open draw for the seeded players in singles which begin from the day after. The draw has thrown open the possibility of top-seeded Sharath Kamal running early into Anthony Amalraj (No. 16 seed) in the pre-quarters and Soumyajit Ghosh (No. 8) in the quarters. On the other hand, No. 2 seed G. Sathiyan is not expected to face any early troubles from the bottom half.

Top-8 seeds:

Men: A Sharath Kamal, G. Sathiyan, Arjun Ghosh, Harmeet Desai, Raj Mondal, Sougata Sarkar, Subhajit Saha, Soumyajit Ghosh.

Women: Madhurika Patkar, Suthirtha Mukherjee, Pooja Shasrabuddhe, Akula Sreeja, Poulami Ghatak, Manika btra, Takeme Sarkar and Archana Kamath.