Goa, December 18: With 16 players enjoying first-round byes, the main draw singles action in Cadet Girls was limited to the 48 qualifiers while in Cadet Boys, no respite was given to any participant as all 64 players played their group matches to qualify for the second stage draw in the 11Sports 79th Cadet and Sub-Junior National Table Tennis Championships at the SP Mukherjee Indoor Stadium here today.

Of the 32 first-round matches in Cadet Boys, one witnessed eight tough matches that went down to the wire. For instance, Mayukh Saha of West Bengal had to play out of his skin to beat Punjab’s Saksham Goel 8-11, 11-6, 14-16, 11-6, 11-3 in a see-saw battle. Again, another Bengal boy Shounak Guha overcame a fighting Kushal Chopda of Maharashtra 11-7, 6-11, 1-13, 11-5, 11-7, Delhi’s Samrath Singh fought well to outsmart is UP rival Maulik Chaturvedi 11-9, 8-11, 11-4, 8-11, 11-9 with the Delhi boy winning the decider by the shortest margin.

Among the easy winners was Goa’s Shantesh Mapsekar who accounted for Delhi’s Japjit Singh Maan 3-0 as did title favourite Tamil Nadu’s Preyesh Raj against Sastha Chandrakant of Pondicherry.

In comparison, the qualifiers that moved into the second round in Cadet Girls did not have to really slog as easy verdicts in most cases indicated except in cases like Karnataka’s Sahana Murthy and Triyasha Maity of West Bengal and then between Maharashtra’s Sachi Dalvi and Tamil Nadu’s Darshini Mouriya who were taken the full distance.

Sahana was 0-2 down but put up a good fight and came back nicely after having played an extended game just before and lost it to Triyasha. But she proved too good in the last two games with complete concentration which helped her win 10-12, 11-6, 13-15, 11-5, 11-7.

It was, more or less, the same situation for the Maharashtra girl as Sachi won 4-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-8, 11-6 after the initial struggle.

Sachi was down 1-2 but her steely resolve won her the day as she managed to put it across the Tamil Nadu paddlers, taking the last two games. The Maharashtra girl first levelled the score, stopping her rival three points short and then ran her through in the decider with full confidence.  

In as many as seven matches, it was a bit of struggle for some qualifiers but they pooh-poohed the initial threat to romp home winners. But the real contest will begin later tonight when they are joined by the 16 top-ranked players who will join the action.

Finalists spotted

In between singles, the doubles action entered the closing stages when Maharashtra, riding on their recent successes, made it to the finals of both Sub-Junior Boys and Girls when Deepit Rajesh Patil and Dev Shroff combined well to beat Tamil Nadu’s top pair of Preyesh Raj and Vishwa Deenadayalan 3-1, while Diya Chitale and Mihika Rohira accounted for Karnataka’s Anargya Manjunath and Yashaswini Ghorpade, also by the same verdict.

However, the other Maharashtra duo of Samruddi Kulkarni and Kheya Shah went down to the Haryana pair of Suhana Saini and Poornima Rohilla as the latter won 3-2 in what was the only tough semi-final. Earlier, Delhi’s Payas Jain and Arush Dutta sent the PSPB Academy’s duo H.Jeho and Alberto Lrruata 3-1 to earn a meeting with the Maharashtraian pair in tomorrow’s final.

Results (Main Draw):

Cadet Boys Singles (Round 1): Preyesh Raj (TN) bt Sastha Chandrakant (PON) 3-0, Sumit Ghosh (NB) bt Abhinav Dutta (ASM) 3-1, Mayukh Saha (WB) bt Saksham Goel (PUN) 3-2, Chaitanya Ahuja (MHR) bt Anuj Joshi (GUJ) 3-1,Oishik Ghosh (WB) bt Aarav Aiyar (Goa0 3-0, Avi Pal (UP) bt Prabhav Gupta (ELI) 3-0, H. Lalruatsanga (PSPBA) bt Harshit Kumar (BHR) 3-0, Akshat Jain (MHR) bt Naman Bhatnagar (HP) 3-0, Ayan Ghosh (WB) bt Vishal Garg (CHD) 3-0, Ishant Koride (TELG) bt R. Jagadishwaran (PON) 3-1, Shounak Guha (WB) bt Kushal Chopda (MHR) 3-2, Mohammad Shaib (KRL) t Ayaan Aziz (ASM) 3-0, Krish Shetty (MHR) bt Rajveer Dhir (PUN) 3-1, Samrath Singh (DLI) bt Maulik Chaturvedi (UP) 3-2, Kushal Patel (MHR) bt Deboshrut Dutta (WB) 3-0, Arnav Aggarwal (PSPBA) bt Saptashawa Chakraborty (NB) 3-1, Ankur Bhattacharjee (WB) bt Rohith Shankar (KNT) 3-0, Kunal Patel (MHR) bt Saikat Sutradhar (NB) 3-1, K. Sanjay Madhavan (TN) bt Mann Joshi (GUJ) 3-2, Anok G Nair (PSPB) bt Shaurya Vaish (DLI) 3-0, Suhaan Gulati (PUN) bt Devansh Mudgal (PSPBA) 3-2, Shreyas Das (ASM) bt Siddhant Kataria (HRN) 3-1, Havish Asrani (MHR) bt Gautam Bharadwaj (UKD) 3-0, Tejas Narang (DLI) 3-0, Anirban Mani (WB) bt Shaji Anand (KRL) 3-2, Akshat Agarwal (UP) bt Agniva Halder (WB) 3-0, Amish Athwale (MHR) bt Manikandan Sundr (TN) 3-2, Emon Adhikary (WB) bt Yatharth Barthunia (Raj) 3-0, Shok Bajan (PSPBA) bt Arman Shaikh (GUJ) 3-0, Soumyadeep Neogi (NB) bt Arijit Das (WB) 3-2, Jyoti Sarma (ASM) bt Neil Mulye (MHR) 3-1, Shantesh Mapsekar (Goa) bt Japjit Singh Maan (DLI) 3-0.

Cadet Girls Singles (Round 1): Sahana Murthy (KNT) bt Triyasha Maity (WB) 3-2, Pranati P. Nair (KRL) bt Archita Dey (JKD) 3-0, Preeti Rajkumar (TN) bt Reshita Dey (NB) 3-0, Rutva Kothari (Guj) bt Tasila Hasini (AP) 3-0, Sachi Dalvi (MHR) bt Darshini Mouriya (TN) 3-2, Bhumika Kaushik (ASM) bt Srijani Basu (NB) 3-1, Amrutha Subaash (TN) bt Yashka Sharma (DLI) 3-1, Sastha Chandraleha (PON) bt Ishika Saha (WB) 3-1, Bidushi Kashyap (ASM) bt hardee Patel (IMHR) 3-1, Vaishnavi Yadav (UP) bt Trupti Purohit (KNT) 3-0, Moshita Chandrasekar (TN) bt Bhumi Gohil (GUJ) 3-0, Diya Bramhachary (WB) bt Kanya Khanna (PUN) 3-0, Neha Singh (CHD) bt Yukti Malhotra (ELI) 3-1, Vanshika Deshana (KNT) bt Bhavprita Sharma (HP) 3-0, Soumili Datta (WB) bt Mercy Palaparthy (TELG) 3-1, Swetapadma Dalai (ODS) bt Sharvani Nagam (TN) 3-1.

Doubles:

Sub-Junior Boys (Semi-finals): Deepit R Patil-Dev Shroof (MHR) bt Preyesh Raj-Vishwa Deenadayalan (TN) 11-9, 8-11, 12-10, 11-4; Payas Jain-Arush Dutt (DLI) bt H. Jeho-Alberto Lrruata (PSPBA) 15-13, 8-11, 11-5, 12-10.

Sub-Junior Boys (Semi-finals): Diya Chitale-Mihika Rohira (MHR) bt Anargya Manjunath-Yashaswini Ghorpade (KNT) 11-5, 11-2, 11-13, 11-4; Suhana Saini-Poornima Rohilla (HRN) bt Samruddhi Kulkarni-Kheya Shah (MHR) 12-10, 7-11, 13-11, 6-11, 11-9.