Siliguri, October 24: It was more than a bit of struggle for Karnataka’s Sujan Bharadwaj as he huffed and puffed his way into the round of 32 in Sub-Junior Boys of the 11Even Sports National Ranking (East Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the SMC Indoor Stadium here today.

Sujan, who has had a sweet-bitter memory of the venue following his excellent outing in the Sub-Junior and Cadet Nationals last year, was taken the full distance by West Bengal’s Sourajit Halder before the Karnataka boy regrouped himself to win 7-11, 11-8, 9-11, 11-5, 11-7 and advance.

Sujan, who narrowly lost the title to UP’s Divyansh Srivastava, had to be satisfied with the silver in Cadet singles last December, was rusty to begin with and allowed his West Bengal opponent a 2-1 lead. However, he fought back well in the last two games to wrap it up, much to his relief. Maybe, the pressure of competing in a higher category took the initial toll but his gutsy play helped him surge ahead in the last two games.

But Sujan’s statemate K.J. Akash was not lucky when he went down fighting to Telagana’s Kesavan Kannan who moved into the round of 32 with 8-11, 11-6, 12-14, 11-4, 11-6 triumph. Probably, the third, extended game drained him out but Kesvan deserves a pat on his back for the wonderful comeback.

North Bengal’s Soumyadeep Sarkar kept his date with destiny as the qualifier managed to stave off a threat from Tamil Nadu’s Karthikeyan Kamaraj to win 5-11, 11-8, 11-9, 8-11, 11-8. With a 2-1 lead, the North Bengal boy was dared when Karthikeyan levelled the score but the local lad kept a tight leash on his rival in the last game to go through to the next round.

Uttar Pradesh’s Akshat Tyagi put up a good fight against Rajveer Shah of Maharashtra to overcome a stiff resistance and pass the muster with 13-11, 5-11, 12-10, 8-11, 11-9 victory. The 64-player main draw had top-eight ranked players getting first round byes.

Unlike the boys, only 12 Sub-Junior Girls had to undergo the ordeal of first round matches in the main draw, thanks to liberal first-round byes—as many as 26 benefiting the largesse along with the top-eight ranked girls. Of the six matches, except for one match in all other matches the stronger ones moved into the round of 32.

But Vartica Bharat from Uttar Pradesh deserved her place in the second round after having been in trouble initially. Down 0-2, the UP girl put up a brave front and really fought well to pooh-pooh the challenge from West Bengal’s Spriha Devanath. The UP girl won 6-11, 10-12, 11-9, 11-2, 11-6.

Results: Stage 2

Sub-Junior Boys: Riswav Dey (WB) bt Nagesh Verenkar (Goa) 3-0, Soumyadeep Sarkar (NB) bt Karthikeyan Kamaraj (TN) 3-2, Mohd. Zubayar Arshad (Asm) bt Aditya Jain PSPBA) 3-0, Varun Shankar (Telg) bt Varun Ganesh (TN) 3-1, Arka Kumar Gogoi (Asm) bt Saheel Suman (Ods) 3-0, Havish Asrani (Mah) bt Raunak Roy (WB) 3-1, Bairal Athokpam (MNP) bt Subhra Jyoti Paul (NB) 3-1, Sujan Bharadwaj (KNT) bt Sourajit Haler (WB) 3-2, Anuj Mahipal (TN) bt Akshat Sha (AP) 3-0,Amir Afthab (KRL) bt Sudarshan Sahu (BHR) 3-0, Adarsh Chetri (Del) bt Ans Rajpur (UP) 3-1, Soumil Mukherjee (WB) bt Arnav Karnavar (Mah) 3-1, Kesavan Kannan (Telg) bt KJ Akash (KNT) 3-2, Aniket Chouwdhury (WB) bt Harivignesh Umasankar (TN) 3-1, Akshat Tyagi (UP) bt Rajveer Shah (Mah) 3-2, Himangshudeep Kalita (Asm) bt Aaradhya Sharma (PSPBA) 3-1.

Sub-Junior Girls: Sristi Goswami (NB) bt Sastha Chandralehaa (Pon) 3-0, Kalyani Dhinesh (KNT) bt Sayani Panda (WB) 3-1, Shreya Shivakumar (TN) bt Ratnabali Pathak (WB) 3-1, Sucheta Prosad (WB) bt Rittika Chakraborty (NB) 3-0, Vartica Bharat (UP) bt Spriha Devanath (WB) 3-2, Mouli Modak (WB) bt Sampada Bhiwandkar (Mah) 3-0.