Indore, March 4: Lakshya Toshniwal, the qualifier from Rajasthan, had to bring to the table his courage and whatever experience he has acquired in his fledgling career to storm into the second round of the UTT 82nd Cadet & Sub-Junior National Table Tennis Championships when he beat Swastik Athanikar of Maharashtra 11-4, 8-11, 11-7, 10-12, 11-5 at the Abhay Prashan here today.

When the Maharashtra boy took the issue to the decider, the Rajasthan lad was game for it and finished it in style. However, Sanskar Basak of Maharashtra managed to put it across Prabhneet Singh Narang, a TTFI wildcard, 7-11, 12-10, 11-5, 9-11, 11-3 to move into the next round. Shirsha Roy Patwari from Bengal recovered well to beat Akhilesh Singh of Punjab 11-7, 7-11, 12-10, 5-11,11-6. Other winners on the day advanced easily.

Top-16 players, based on their last National ranking, including eight seeds, filled the 16 vacant slots. All of them will skip the first-round matches today and jump into the fray tomorrow. The remaining 32 players drawn in various quarters began their campaign in the main draw.

Anuj Soni of Madhya Pradesh, playing the crucial match in group 21, trailed 1-2 against Kerala’s Mohammad Naffi when he squandered two game points in the third. But, he put up a brave front in the fourth and fifth to come out winners. He was able to beat the Kerala boy in the last two games after deuce.

However, Vishesh Rastogi failed to make the cut, despite winning his group 39 match against Rithish Kumar (TTFI) 11-8, 11-6, 4-11, 8-11, 11-6. Instead, Kerala’s Milan Binoy Nair entered the main draw from this group when he accounted for Goa’s Aariz Sheikh Ali in straight games.  

Another interesting third-round match between Sampann of TTFI and Deboshrut Dutta of Bengal, the latter came good, winning the last three games after the initial struggle for a 3-2 verdict. Chhattisgarh’s Vishal Dekate’s hard-fought 3-2 win against Pritish Sood of Chandigarh went in vain in group 29. However, Swastik Athanikar of Maharashtra outwitted Shreyas Das of Assam 3-2 to enter the main draw.

Shivansh Adlakha of Haryana staged a fine comeback, after trailing 1-2 in Group 32 final round match, to beat Vardaan Aggarwal of Himachal to earn his second stage passage. Other winners to enter the knockout phase were Pragyan Manujula (AP) and Divyaj Rajkhowa (PSPBA). However, there were a couple of casualties that failed to qualify despite winning the last round.

Cadet Boys begin their knockout matches tomorrow morning.

Results:

Sub-Junior Boys (Round 64): Lakshya Toshniwal (Raj) bt Swastik Athanikar (Mah) 3-2, Sanskar Basak (Mah) bt Prabhneet Singh (TTFI) 3-2, Middela Arush Reddy (TTFI) bt Priyanuj Bhattacharyya (Asm) 3-0, Emon Adhikary (Ben) bt Aarav Negi (Ukd) 3-0, Harshit Kumar (Bih) bt Atherva Gupta (TTFI) 3-1, Devansh Mudgal (Raj0 bt Shivansh Adlakha (Har) 3-0, Ashmit Krishna (TTTA) bt Anokh G. Nair (Ker) 3-1, Jyoti Hriday Sarma (Asm) bt Sumit Ghosh (Ben) 3-1, Pragyan Manujula (AP) bt Anuj Soni (MP) 3-0, Punit Biswas (Ben) bt Milan Binoy Nair (Ker0 3-1, Rishabh Mayank (Har) bt Neil Mulye (Mah) 3-0, Abhiveer nanda (UP) bt Deboshrut Dutta (Ben) 3-1, Shirsha Roy Patwar (Ben) bt Akhilesh Singh (Pun) 3-2, Manikandan Sundar (TNTTA) bt Arnavv Chhabra (TTFI) 3-1, Shlok Bajaj (Guj) bt Sanjay V (TTFI) 3-0, Yatharth Barthuniya (Raj) bt Divyaj Rajkhowa Roy (PSPBA) 3-1.

Top-eight seeds: Preyesh Suresh Raj (TN), Ankur Bhattacharjee (Ben), Gaurav Panchangam (Mah), Ayan Ghosh (TTFI), Shankhadip Das (Ben), P.B. Abhinandh (TN), Kushal Patel (Mah) and Rohith Shankar (Kar).