Ranchi, January 26: The second-day table tennis action in the 79th edition of the 11Even Sports Senior Nationals was a slow and painful drag and didn’t serve anybody’s purpose, including Tamil Nadu’s as their team completed their group F engagements at the Mega Sports Complex at Khelgaon here without Reeth Rishya’s presence in the morning.

With her scheduled flight to Ranchi from Mumbai having been cancelled, the state had to take a decision to play their group matches without delaying the proceedings any further. Indeed, with the available bench strength they qualified for the second stage and even moved into the quarterfinals in style after beating Odisha 3-1, despite Reeth losing her rubber 13-15, 12-10, 12-10, 6-11, 8-11 to junior player Anannya Basak as Yashini Sivashankar—she won her two singles—and Selanadeepthi Selvakumar sharing the burden as they did during the group stages.

In hindsight, it was a wise decision for Tamil Nadu to move ahead and not hold back the proceedings to accommodate one player! However big or important the player is to the team’s fortunes, even the most experienced cannot produce result straightaway without any practice. And that’s precisely what happened to Reeth who, despite leading 2-1 against the Odisha youngster, could not shake off rustiness and allowed Anannya to claw her way back into the second singles and level the team score.

But then Selena put Tamil Nadu up again when she beat Prusty Samartha 11-6, 11-8, 13-11 and thereafter it was left to Yashini to take care of Anannya. The Tamil Nadu girl, who beat Poushali Ghatak in the first singles 3-0, repeated the treatment to Anannya to win 11-7, 11-4, 11-3.

They will now take on Kerala who sent Maharashtra A packing 3-2 in a marathon with as many as 22 games being played. Maria Rony was the star player for Kerala as she not only provided the lead, beating Shruti Amruti 11-7, 10-12, 10-12, 11-6, 11-6 but also won 12-10, 9-11, 11-2, 11-8 against the experienced Mamata Prabhu to restore parity after Maharashtra had extricated themselves to lead 2-1 as Seraha Jacob lost to Mamata Prabhu 5-11, 11-7, 11-5, 7-11, 10-12. Renuka Aswani was easily consumed by Mallika Bhandarkar 11-5, 11-4, 11-3.

But then Maria brought Kerala back on rails and Seraha accounted for Shruti 4-11, 11-6, 6-11, 11-6, 11-5 in the edge-of-the-seat reverse singles. Unfortunately, Maharashtra’s B also lost 0-3 to PSPB and, as a result, the state paddlers would leave Ranchi without a team medal.  

Maharashtra’s early exit has put a question mark over the the team’s entry into the National Games to be held in Goa later this year as one of theirs teams will have to finish ninth or tenth here to be eligible to earn a berth at the Games as only eight teams make the cut, including hosts Goa!

The men pre-quarterfinals are in progress and both members of the men and women team are braced for a long evening as the quarterfinals, too, are scheduled tonight.

RESULTS: (Team):

Women (PQF): West Bengal bt Uttar Pradesh 3-0, North Bengal bt Delhi 3-0, Madhya Pradesh bt Telangana 3-1, PSPB bt Maharashtra B 3-0, RBI bt Andhra Pradesh 3-0, Haryana bt Karnataka 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt Odisha 3-1, Kerala bt Maharshtra A 3-2.