Suthirtha qualifies for Nanjing Youth Olympics

 

 

Bangkok, April 6: Promising Suthirtha Mukherjee made her cut for 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympics Games beating here at the Asian Qualification tournament, beating the Malaysia’s An Qi Angeline Tang 4-0 (11-5, 11-4, 11-2, 11-9 in what turned out to be a one-sided affair.

 

Thus, she became to sixteenth player to qualify form out of 32 female players who will take part in the Nanjing YOG to be held in August.

 

Abhishek Yadav, who is the other Indian, competing here for a YOG place too has a very good chance, but his fate will be known later in the day.

 

As for Suthitha, who lost in the semifinals at the Road to Nanjig series held at Goa in the third week of last month, was at her best today. Right from the start, the Indian was on an attacking mode and it paid rich dividends. After taking the first three games easily—she haas great service variations and relentlessly attacked—Suthirtha slackened a bit in the fourth, providing her Malaysian opponent ample opportunities.

 

The Malaysian, who too failed to grab the opportunity at Goa last month, seemingly did well in the fourth in what seemed to be a nice come back. Even as Tang was doing well, midway through she made few unforced errors which cost her game. Otherwise, she gave some anxious moments for Suthirtha but before things could go out of hands the Indian settled the issue beyond the Malaysian.

 

Giving full credit to her coach Muralidhar Rao, Suthirtha admitted that she did prepare well for the tournament, particularly after losing the chance at Goa. “During breaks and at time out in the fourth game, Rao Sir told me to keep my service and attacking variations going. They helped me a lot. I am happy I did not let him down. I very badly needed to win to qualify for the Games,” said Suthirtha.

 

In her earlier round in Stage 2, Suthirtha had beaten Libyan Paricia Homsy in straight games of 11-5, 11-6, 11-4, 11-7. And in the group matches she had little difficulty in putting it across her rivals to enter the main round.

 

Meanwhile, both Gremlis Arvelo (Venezuela) and Maria Lorenzoti (Urugyay) were the two players who qualified from the Latin American qualification tournament held at Santo Domingo in the last week of March. This event happened after the RTN series at Goa, where Seri Park from Korea had qualified as the 13^th female player.