Panchkula, February 16: A year of rustiness is not easy to shake off. And the players, including the seeds, at the UTT 82nd Senior National Table Tennis Championships realized it to their chagrin at the Tau Devi Lal Indoor Stadium here today.

Mercifully, however, all the seeds sprouted. Some with ease and some with hardship. The classic case was that of 15th seed Reeth Rishya. After leading 3-1 and 10-8, she had to fight really hard to outwit Munmun Kundu from Bengal A 11-9, 12-10, 15-13, 9-11, 11-3, 6-11, 11-8.

Top-seeded Manika struggled before overcoming qualifier Kajol Ramjali of Andhra Pradesh in the first round. Manika eventually won 13-11, 11-9, 11-5, 7-11, 11-3 to move into the round of 32. Second seed Sutirtha Mukherjee hardly dropped a sweat against Kushi Jain of Madhya Pradesh. The Haryana paddler and reigning champion won 11-5, 11-3, 11-8, 11-7. Archana Kamath, seeded ninth, was at sea in her contest against Swastika Ghosh, a TTFI wildcard entrant. Archana, with some consternation, beat her rival 13-15, 12-10, 11-9, 4-11, 13-11, 11-5.  In contrast, Diya Chitale disposed of Vidya Narasimhan of TNTTA 11-4, 11-6, 11-9, 11-4. The 16-year-old prodigy from Maharashtra played as if she had to pick up from where she left it off yesterday.

Manika’s win was never in doubt, but Kajol kept herself in the game with some wonderful forehands that somewhat unsettled Manika. But with her experience, she overcame her Andhra rival. However, Archana found herself caught on the wrong foot right from the start.

In the first, she deuced and then went up 11-10 holding a game point. But Swastika won the game 15-13. In the second, too, Archana struggled to land her returns but managed to restore parity. She seemed relieved after going 2-1 up only to drop the next game. But she gained confidence after winning the fifth set and it helped her wrap up the next.

For fourth-seed Sreeja Akula, Assam’s Akanshya Bhuyan, was no match. The RBI girl won in straight games (11-3, 11-2, 11-2, 15-13).  No. 3 seed Ayhika Mukherjee dropped just a game against Punjab’s Aarushi Arora before wrapping it up 11-5, 11-7, 11-4, 6-11, 11-4. It was easy for 11th seed Takeme Sarkar who beat Bhavana Menon of Kerala 11-9, 12-10, 11-3, 15-13. Sixth-seed Krittwika Sinha Roy followed suit with an 11-6, 11-6, 11-5, 11-8 triumph over T.R. Shruthi of TTTA.

Former national champion Madhurika Patkar accounted for Yashaswini Ghorpade of Karnataka after dropping two games to win 7-11, 11-4, 11-2, 12-10, 9-11, 11-7. The 14th seed was in trouble when she dropped the opening game before picking up herself. Madhurika led 3-1 against the Karnataka girl. But the latter won the fifth game, giving her a scare. Madhurika’s experience held her in good stead in the sixth which she won.

But K. Shamini was not fortunate and exited from the tournament, losing her first-round match to Varuni Jaiswal. The Telangana girl won 11-8, 9-11, 11-6, 12-10, 11-6. Ankita Das, another former national champion, won (8-11, 11-4, 11-3, 7-11, 11-6, 11-7) against Snehal Patil of Maharashtra, though not convincingly. Tenth seed Selenadeepthi Selvakumar of TTTA beat Maria Rony of Karnataka 11-5, 11-8, 11-9, 14-12.