National Ranking Table Tennis Championships: Sanil Shetty, Sreeja Akula given top billing; four players test COVID-19 positive

Sanil Shetty and Sreeja Akula have been handed the top seedings in the men's and women's singles categories respectively in the UTT National Ranking (Central Zone) Table Tennis Championships.

The draw came on a day when four players tested positive for COVID-19 during regular RT-PCR tests, while India's second best table tennis player Sathiyan Gnanasekaran withdrew due to ill health.

Sathiyan’s withdrawal forced the redrawing of the seedings to fill the 16th spot.

Two other withdrawals in the women’s singles followed when Ankita Das had to leave to attend a medical exigency while Divya Deshpande withdrew due to an injury.

Manav Thakkar and Harmeet Desai complete the top three seedings in the men's category. In the women's category, Reeth Rishya is seeded second while Prapti Sen will be third seed.

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Jeet Chandra of the Airports Authority of India made it to the top-16 following the vacancy created by Sathiyan.

The players who have tested positive will no longer be a part of the Championships and will follow the isolation and quarantine protocol of the organizers and state.

The main draw in both sections will take place on Tuesday after the Youth Under-19 players start their campaign.

Seedings in National Ranking (Central Zone) Table Tennis Championships

The following are the seedings in the National Ranking Table Tennis Championships.

Men: Sanil Shetty, Manav Thakkar (both PSPB), Harmeet Desai, Manush Shah (both Guj), Anthony Amalraj (PSPB), Anirban Ghosh (RSPB), SFR Snehit (Telg), Soumyajit Ghosh (Har), Ronit Bhanja, Jeet Chandra (both AAI), Shubh Goel (Del), Arjun Ghosh (RSPB), Deepit Patil (Mah), Abhishek Yadav (UP), Sudhanshu Grover and Payas Jain (both Del).

Women: Akula Sreeja (RBI), Reeth Rishya (PSPB), Prapti Sen, Takeme Sarkar (both RSPB), Diya Chitale (Mah), Swastika Ghosh (AAI), Sutirtha Mukherjee (RSPB) and Anusha Kutumbale (MP).