Ajmer, November 24: The women and men teams of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) toyed with their opponents in the first two rounds of their Group A matches to almost firm up a slot each in the second stage of the draw in the 49th Inter-Institutional Table Tennis Championships at the MCC Indoor Stadium here today.

The other teams that have, more or less, ensured their berth in the knockout stage in both sections included AAI, Railways and RBI. All teams have a round each to be played tonight. Two teams from each group qualify for the second stage which begins tomorrow along with the single group Youth Boys and Youth Girls events.

In the first round, PSPB coach Arup Basak preferred Archana Kamath, Madhurika Patkar and Sutirtha Mukehrjee and except for Madhurika, who lost to Ministry of Communication & IT’s Shailu Noorbasha 8-11, 6-11, 6-11, the other two paddlers posted easy wins over their rivals. Archana defeated Sayani Bose 11-6, 11-3, 11-3 but when Madhurika lost her singles to Shailu, Suthirtha retrieved the situation beating Sangita Mahadani 11-2, 11-5, 11-3. In her reverse singles, Archana dropped a game to Shailu before helping her team win the first round 11-4, 11-7, 12-14, 11-1.

In the second round, Manika Batra played her first match at home this year and without dropping a sweat defeated LIC’s Mrunmayee Mhatre 11-5-11-5, 14-12 to provide the lead. With Archana rested for the second round, onus was on Madhurika to redeem herself and she did it admirably, accounting for Prajakta Tipale 11-9, 11-8, 11-7. Krittiwika Sinha Roy got her opportunity in rotation and in the third singles she downed Chandrani Dey 11-4, 11-7, 8-11, 11-5.

Railways’ young squad, comprising Takeme Sarkar, Sagarika Mukherjee and Shruti Amrute struggled a bit in the first round but using the firepower they had, the RSCP women won 3-1 against FCI. Takeme Sarkar won both her singles, beating Frenaz Chipia 11-7, 11-5, 11-7 and then defeated Shanmathi Sathyamoorthy 8-11, 12-10, 12-10, 11-4 in the fourth rubber to seal FCI’s fate. Though Sagarika won her first singles beating Shanmathi 11-5, 9-11, 11-7, 11-7, left-handed Shruti lost to Sataporni De 9-11, 11-13, 7-11.

In the second round, it was rather easy for the Railways new combination of Kaushani Nath and Moumita Dutta along with senior pro Sagarika Mukherjee as they beat Air India 3-0. RBI, who posted a 3-1 victory over Bank of Baroda Sports Control Board, had warmed up nicely by the time they met Indian Audit in the second round, scoring a 3-0 win. However, AAI were taken the full distance by Central Revenue Board before Selenadeepthi Selvakumar winning her second singles against Hely Shah in straight games. Mallika Bhandarkar had earlier beaten Hely Shah 3-0 and Garima Goyal 3-2 to level score after Surbhi Patwari, the third singles player, lost her match to Camelia Sil 2-3.

As for PSPB’s men team, Sharath could not even warm up against Pritam Bose of Ministry of Communication and IT, winning the match 11-6, 11-8, 11-9. Anthony Amalraj dusted away the second game loss to beat Kaushik Phukan 11-5, 5-11, 12-10 11-6 and Harmeet Desai ended Ministry of Communications’ ordeal with 9-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-3 win.  

In the second round Harmeet, Manav Thakkar and Sudhanshu Grover completed the task against BoBSCB with a 3-0 triumph. 

Results (TEAM):

Women (Round 1):

Group A: PSPB bt Ministry of Communication & IT 3-1; Group B: AAI bt ESIC 3-0; Group C: RSCB bt FCI 3-1; Group D: RBI bt BoB SCB 3-1; Indian Audit bt Defence Accounts 3-0.

Round 2:

Group A: PSPB bt LIC 3-0; Group B: AAI bt Central Revenue Board 3-2; Group C: RSCB bt Air India 3-0; Group D: BoB SCB bt Defence Accounts 3-0; RBI bt Indian Audit 30.

Men (Round 1):

Group A: PSPB bt Ministry of Communication & IT 3-0; Group B: RSCB bt Defence Accounts 3-1; Group C: AAI bt Ordnance Factory Board 3-0; Group D: Canara Bank bt Major Ports 3-0; Group E: FCI bt DAE 3-0; Group F: Indian Audit bt Air Force SCB 3-0.

Round 2:

Group A: PSPB bt BoBSCB 3-0; Group B: RSPB bt ESIC 3-0; Group C: AAI bt Central Revenue Board 3-0; Group D: LIC bt Canara Bank 3-0; Group E: RBI bt FCI 3-2; Group F: Indian Audit bt Air India 3-2.