National champion Soumyajit Ghosh found it easy to tame unseeded Sudhanshu Grover to enter the men's singles semi-finals, but top seed G. Sathiyan bowed out in the quarter-finals of the 45th All-India Institutional Table Tennis Championships at the Thyagraj Stadium here on Saturday.
Ghosh beat Grover 4-1, Harmeet Desai overcame Anirban Ghosh 4-3, Sanil Shetty downed Devesh Karia 4-2 and Anthony Amalraj beat Sathiyan 4-2 at the Thyagraj Stadium.
On the show court, Sathiyan started well only to surrender the initiative to Amalraj, who had to play the qualifiers after having missed the entire last season. Amalraj, as if on cue, played true to his self and executed bold shots to outwit Sathiyan in the fourth game.
After that it was Amalraj all the way, though he won both the fourth and fifth games with minimum points. In the sixth, Amalraj didn't have to put in too much of an effort.
After the fall of the top two seeds, Mouma Das, who is also the current national champion, and Pooja Sahasrabudhe, the field was left open for lesser seeds that made most of the occasion. Moving into the semi-finals were No.8 Madhurika Patkar, No.4 Manika Batra, No.3 Ankita Das and unseeded K. Shamini.
Top seed Mouma was toppled in the morning by qualifier Shweta Parte of RBI who won 12-10, 11-7, 6-11, 11-7, 11-9. Second seed Pooja followed suit, going down to another qualifier from RSPB Rupsa Bhattacharya 3-2.
But Pooja, unlike Mouma, did put up some fight before bowing out. Rupsa won 11-7, 8-11, 9-11, 2-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-7). The Railways woman, after being down 1-3, came back nicely to beat her fancied rival.
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As for the quarter-finals, Madhurika had it easy against Railways' Shreya Ghosh, winning the match 4-1 while Mankia struggled to overcome AAI's Nikhat Banu 4-2. But Ankita had to gather all her experience to beat RBI's Krittwika Sinha Roy 4-3.
Results:
Women's Singles: Quarter-finals: Madhurika Patkar (PSPB) bt Shreya Ghosh (RSPB) 4-1 (11-9, 11-5, 7-11, 11-2, 11-4), Manika Batra (PSPB) bt Nikhat Banu (AAI) 4-2 (10-12, 11-5, 11-5, 9-11, 11-7, 11-7), Ankita Das (PSPB) bt Krittwika Sinha Roy (RBI) 4-3 (9-11, 11-6, 11-7, 6-11, 11-4, 8-11, 11-2), K. Shamini (PSPB) bt Amrutha Pushpak (AAI) 4-2 (11-7, 9-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-7, 11-4).
Men's Singles: Quarter-finals: Anthony Amalraj (PSPB) bt G. Sathiyan (PSPB) 4-2 (7-11, 13-11, 5-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-7), Harmeet Desai (PSPB) bt Anirban Ghosh (WB) 4-3 (5-11, 12-10, 7-11, 11-9, 11-8, 5-11, 11-5), Sanil Shetty (PSPB) bt Devesh Karia (CRSB) 4-2 (11-7, 7-11, 6-11, 11-6, 11-3, 11-3, 12-10), Soumyajit Ghosh (PSPB) bt Sudhanshu Grover (PSPB) 4-1 (5-11, 11-4, 11-6, 11-5, 11-8).