Bhavnagar, November 10: Fifth-seeded Haryana boy, Jeet Chandra, sent top-seeded Sanil Shetty packing to join state mate Soymajit Ghosh in the semi-finals of the UTT National Ranking (Central Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the SAG Sports Complex here today.

Ghosh defeated Anirban Nandi of Railways 4-1 while others who joined them in the next round for the title race, included Sushmit Sriram of Tamil Nadu who beat Ronit Bhanja of West Bengal 4-1 and Birdie Boro accounted for a fighting Nitin Thiruvengadam of BBSCB 4-2 to book their semi-final spots.

Among the other women seeds that followed Archana Kamath’s ouster, included West Zone winner Sreeja Akula, Madhurika Patkar while top-seeded Sutirtha Mukherjee of Haryana survived against a fighting Railways’ Sagarika Mukherjee 4-3. Ayhika Mukehrjee, too struggled before overcoming Reeth Rishya 4-3.

Earlier, third-seeded Sudhanshu Grover went down to Ronit Bhanja 2-4 in the pre-quarters like fifth seed Archana Kamath who was consumed 4-0 Anusha Kutumbale. Sudhanshu was found wanting as he not only failed to keep the ball on table but also gave away quite a few negative points to his opponent. Nevertheless, Ronit hit a nice rhythm and had good counters to whatever was sent down by Sudhanshu. The match also witnessed good rallies with several winners coming Ronit’s way.

But other seeded players defied the trend in both sections and marched into the quarterfinals, like fifth-seeded Jeet Chandra and Soumyajit Ghosh, both from Haryana, who won in contrasting styles. Ghosh easily defeated his former PSPB mate Subhajit Saha 4-1, while Jeet struggled, taking an extra game to outlast LIC’s Sougata Sarkar. But the interesting match-up was between old warhorse Anirban Nandi of Railways and promising youngster Abimanyu Mitra of West Bengal, which the Railways paddler won 4-1.  Equally difficult it was Sushmit Srriram who had to play his best to beat Sourav Saha of Haryana 4-2 and Nitin Thiruvengadam making most of the negative points from Ravindra Kotiyan of Railways to register his triumph 4-3.

After Archana’s struggle, Madhurika Patkar was almost taken the full distance by Railways Kaushani Nath. It was a real hard-fought win for sixth-seeded Prapti Sen against experienced Pooja Sahasrabudhe. Pooja, trailing 0-2 did well to level the score but it was the West Bengal girl who had the last laugh winning the last three games to progress. Second-seed Ayhika Mukherjee should thank her stars for being let off by the inexperienced young Tamil Nadu paddler, Kowshika Venkatesan, who lost the decider after deuce.

Results:

Men: Quarterfinals: Jeet Chandra (Har) bt Sanil Shetty (PSPB) 11-9, 10-12, 2-11, 13-11, 11-4, 11-6; Birdie Boro (PSPB) bt Nitin Thiruvengadam (BBSCB) 11-8, 9-11, 9-11, 11-3, 11-5, 11-6; Sushmit Sriram (TN) bt Ronit Bhanja (WB) 11-9, 8-11, 11-6, 11-3, 11-4; Soumyajit Ghosh (Har) bt Anirban Nandi (Rlys) 11-6, 11-6, 11-7, 8-11, 11-8.

Women: Quarterfinals: Sutirtha Mukherjee (Har) bt Sagarika Mukherjee (Rlys) 9-11, 11-3, 8-11, 11-6, 7-11, 11-4, 11-8; Anusha Kutumbale (MP) bt Sreeka Akula (RBI) 11-9, 5-11, 11-3, 11-9, 13-11; Prapti Sen (WB) bt Madhurika Patkar (PSPB) 11-9, 9-11, 12-10, 11-4, 7-11, 11-8; Ayhika Mukherjee (RBI) bt Reeth Rishya (PSPB) 5-11, 11-6, 9-11, 11-8, 11-2, 15-13.