Howrah, October 22: West Bengal emerged champions in both the Men and Women categories in the team events for the region of the UTT National Ranking (East Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the Howrah Indoor Stadium here today.

In the men and women finals, played in the best-of-five format, favourites West Bengal defeated North Bengal 3-1, just dropping one rubber in each section. In fact, West Bengal began badly when their doubles pair of experienced Sougata Sarkar and Arjun Ghosh was caught on the wrong foot when they found both Jyabrata Bhattacharya and Mainak Das not only combined too well but also played some astonishing shots with excellent placing.

Down 0-1, West Bengal had put up their best singles players in Ronit Bhanja and Arjun Ghosh with Sougata to follow. Ronit defeated Akaash Nath in straight games while Arjun Ghosh, despite dropping the opening game, stitched a nice win by taking the next three to put his side 2-1 ahead. Sougata, as usual, played it cool to wrap it up quickly and win the title for the hosts.

In women team championships, the story was more or less the same, except the fact that West Bengal’s Krittwika Sinha Roy who lost her singles rubber to Nikita Sarkar 2-3. But their doubles duo of Prapti Sen and Surbhi Patwari provided the hosts a grand opening and then Surbhi Patwari consolidated their position with Krittwika overcoming Puja Paul to lift the team trophy.

With more teams participating in men team events, it started with quarterfinals while in women championships it was a simple case of teams competing from the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, the men, women, Youth Boys and Girls qualification events began today.

Results: (Team championships):

Men: Final: West Bengal bt North Bengal 3-1 (Sougata Sarkar/Arjun Ghosh lost to Jayabrata Bhattacharya/Mainak Das 11-13, 9-11, 7-11; Ronit Bhanja bt Akaash Nath 11-8, 11-7, 11-2; Arjun Ghosh bt mainak Das 11-13, 11-5, 17-15, 12-10; Sougata Sarkar bt Akaash Nath 11-2, 11-7, 11-1); Semi-finals: West Bengal bt Odisha 3-0 (Abhimanyu Mitra/Arjun Ghosh bt Eshwar Rao/Snehamoy Mallic 11-9, 13-11; Sougata Sarkar bt Mohammad Azhar 11-8, 11-6; Arjun Ghosh bt Snehamoy 11-8, 11-6); North Bengal bt Assam 3-0 (Jayabrata B/Mainak Das 11-9, 11-5; Akaash Nath bt Anal 12-10, 11-6; Mainak Das bt Shankar 11-7, 11-6); Quarterfinals: West Bengal bt Mizoram 3-0 (Ronit Bhanja/Abhimanyu Mitra bt Alberto/John 11-4, 11-5, Arjun Ghosh bt Jeho. H 5-11, 11-1, 11-3; Abhimanyu Manyu bt John 11-7, 11-2); Odisha bt Jharkhand 3-2 (Eshwar Rao/Md Azhar bt Devesh/Somnath 11-7, 7-11, 11-7; Snehamay lost to Shivaji 4-11, 8-11; Md Azhar bt Somnath 11-8, 11-3; Eshwar Rao lost to Shivaji 3-11, 13-11, 2-11; Snehamay bt Devsh 10-12, 11-7, 11-7); Assam bt Tripura 3-0 (Agniv Gohain/S Barua bt Sourish Saaha/S Sil 11-7, 11-5; Anal Kashyap bt S Chakraborty 11-9, 11-3; S Barua bt S Sil 11-3, 11-5); North Bengal bt Bihar (Mainak Das/S Sarkar bt Piyush/Pankaj 11-7, 11-7; Akaash Nath bt Yogesh 11-7, 9-11, 11-8; S Srkar lost to Pankaj 11-8, 12-14, 8-11; M Das lost to Yogesh 9-11, 9-11; Akaash Nath bt Piyush 11-6, 11-3).  

Women: Final: West Bengal bt North Bengal 3-1 (Prapti Sen/Surbhi Patwari bt Puja Paul/Sataporni De 11-3, 11-9, 11-7;Krittwika Sinha Roy lost to Nikita Sarkar 11-5, 12-10, 11-13, 9-11, 10-12; Surbhi Patwari bt Sataporni De 11-8, 11-8, 3-1, 12-10; Krittwika Sinha Roy bt Puja Paul 11-8, 9-11, 11-3, 11-4); Semi-finals: West Bengal bt Assam 3-0 (Krittwika Sinha Roy/Surbhi Patwari bt Gangee Goswami/Jitakhee Mazumdar 11-9, 11-4; Prapti Sen bt Trisha Gogoi 11-6, 11-6; Krittwia Sinha Roy bt Jitakhee 11-5, 11-8); North Bengal bt Odisha 3-0 (Satapoorni De/Puja Paul bt Mayuri Chatterjee/Paushali Ghatak 11-7, 5-11, 11-8; Nikita Sarkar bt Sweta 11-6, 11-7; Puja Paul bt Paushali Ghatak 11-6, 11-6).