National Ranking Table Tennis Championships: Top men's seeds bow out, Ronit, Snehit enter semis

The top two table tennis men's seeds, Sanil Shetty and Manav Thakkar, fought well in the quarter-finals, before going down to Ronit Bhanja and FRS Snehit, respectively in the men's singles in the UTT National Ranking (Central Zone) Table Tennis Championships.

Later in the day, Manush Shah and Harmeet Deasi sailed into the semi-finals.

In the women's singles, Delhi table tennis player Lakshita Narang beat Krittwika Sinha Roy 4-2 to enter the quarter-finals.

Read: Keerthana Swaminathan: The sports science and exercise pyschologist behind paddlers

Delhi paddler Lakshita took a 2-0 lead before conceding the next, allowing Krittwika come to even terms. However, Lakshita upped her game in the next two, particularly in the sixth, to win the clash on extended points and send Krittwika packing.

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Mixed day for other table tennis seeds

Of the remaining seeds in the fray, top-seed Sreeja Akula blanked out Anushal Kutumbale, the eighth seed, while second-seed Reeth Rishya was stretched a bit before putting it across unseeded Yashaswini Ghorpade of Karnataka.

Although Yashaswini took a 2-0 lead, Reeth brought out the best in her to take the next four games, much to the chagrin of Yashaswini.

Diya Chitale yet again put up a great show for the second time to outwit Railways’ Takeme Sarkar. Diya, despite leading 2-0, let Takeme claw her way back and lead 3-2. But the sixth extended points game infused fresh life into Diya and after that, she never looked back.

In the pre-quarterfinals of the men’s singles, four seeded table tennis player — fifth-seed Anthony Amalraj, 10th-seed Jeet Chandra, 13th-seed Deepit Rajesh Patil and 15th-seed Sudhanshu Grover — fell by the wayside, joining the five others that fell in the previous rounds.

Amalraj bowed out to unseeded Yashansh Malik who, after dropping the first match-point, won the second to beat the PSPB paddler player. Unfortunately, Amalraj could not cash in on his 2-1 lead and wilted under mounting pressure, especially when he had a chance to level the game in the sixth.