UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships: Sanil Shetty, Prapti Sen get top billing

Sanil Shetty and Prapti Sen received the top billings in the men’s and women's singles categories at the UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships (South Zone) being held at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium in Puducherry.

Manav Thakkar, until recently the leader on the points table, had finished runner-up in the last table tennis championships held at Dehradun, and Shetty joined him after his title-winning efforts. It forced a tie and a consequential coin toss.

Eventually, Manav found himself pushed to the second spot.

In the women’s singles open seeding draw, Prapti Sen has been seeded No. 1 despite the Railways’ table tennis player failing to get past her teammate Sutirtha Mukherjee in the quarter-finals.

Read: Sanil Shetty, Sutirtha win titles at National Ranking Table Tennis Championships

Although Sutirtha won the crown at Dehradun, finishing ahead of Reeth Rishya of PSPB, the latter is seeded second.

Of the three seeds on the list from the Railways, Takeme Sarkar and Sutirtha Mukherjee follow one another at No. 3 and No. 4, respectively.

Surprisingly, table tennis players Swastika Ghosh and Diya Chitale, the winner and the runner-up of Youth U-19 girls category last time, skipped their main events to concentrate on the women’s singles only. Both figure on the list of seeds, thanks to their consistency against the best.

Young table tennis players hog limelight

In comparison, it’s a topsy-turvy seeding among the men. This may be due to the top-ranked 16 table tennis players getting the privileges because of the edge seen in their competitions.

But the best thing is that several junior table tennis players have grabbed the opportunity to challenge the citadel once held by the top eight.

Among the young table tennis players, Abhishek Yadava, Anirban Ghosh, Ronit Bhanja, and Arjun Ghosh have failed to carve out a niche for themselves despite their best efforts all these years.

Yet table tennis players like Payas Jain and Deepit Rajesh Patil have systematically eroded their bastion, making deep inroads with steady progress.

Seedings: Men: Sanil Shetty, Manav Thakkar (both PSPB), Soumyajit Ghosh (HAR), Sudhanshu Grover (DEL), Anthony Amalraj (PSPB), Payas Jain (DEL), Deepit Rajesh Patil (MAH) and SFR Snehit (TEL).

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