Meghalaya: Top seeds tumble, old-timers shine at National TT champs

Shillong: Several top seeds, including Manika Batra, were knocked out of the 83rd Senior National Table Tennis Championship at the SAI Indoor Stadium in Shillong on Sunday. 

Manika Batra exited after losing her Round of 32 match to Ayhika Mukherjee of RBI. Ayhika led 3 games to 2 and was two points away from winning the match in the best of 7 games. However, Manika, who represents the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board, fought back to make it 3-3. 

This was not the first time Manika had found herself in previous games. However, she had always found a way to fight back. This time, however, it was Ayhika who held her nerve. She stormed to victory in the seventh game 11-3 and threw her arms in the air at winning the match point after largely controlling in her emotions throughout. 

Meanwhile, Akash Pal and Prapti Sen of Railways Sports Promotion Board won the final of the mixed doubles 3-1 (best of five) against the Haryana team of Soumyajit Ghosh and Suhana Saini. 

Old warhorse and five-time national champion Mouma Das proved age is just a number. Picking up after a three-year hiatus, the 38-year-old defeated teenager and second-seeded Diya Chitale 4-3 in the women’s singles to enter the quarterfinals.

But eighth seed Prapti Sen failed to move up. Earlier, promising Archana Kamath lost to a tenacious Yashini Sivashankar of Tamil Nadu, losing 4-3 in the Round of 32.

The day also saw some men’s seeds also fall by the wayside.

Prominent among them included fourth seed Harmeet Desai, eighth seed SFR Snehit, 10th seed Sudhanshu Grover, 11th seed Ronit Bhanja, 12th seed Anthony Amalraj and 15th seed Deepit Patil.

Although Meghalaya did not feature in the main rounds, a Meghalaya lad playing for Delhi, Aadarsh Om Chhetri was in action against top men’s player G Sathiyan but lost 4-0 in the Round of 32. 

Chhetri, originally of Laimer, Upper Shillong, lived in Meghalaya until Class 4 before moving away to further his table tennis dreams and now represents Delhi.

Also read: Meghalaya: Metbah Lyngdoh makes headlines over fake WhatsApp account