India's Sreeja Akula registered impressive back-to-back wins to qualify for the Cadet girls main draw in the USD 8000 Reliance India Junior and Cadet Open Table Tennis Championships at the NSCI-Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium here today.
As the individual events got under way today, diminutive Akula turned out to be the 'smiling assassin' as she overcame compatriots Srushti Haleangadi and Dyuti Patki with 3-0 margins to qualify from Group I.
At 15, Hyderabad lass Akula does not look her age but was big enough to ease through both her qualifying round robin matches. The first was a more significant effort over a much taller Haleangadi who led 10-8 in the third set but failed to capitalise on the brief advantage to keep her hopes alive.
Joining Akula in the main draw were toppers Sagarika Mukherjee, Moumita Dutta, and Harsha Vardhini Calange from their respective groups.
Soroosh Amiri, 16, Iran's lone paddler in the competition, also earned back-to-back wins to enhance his chances of qualifying for the junior boys' main draw from Group 4.
Amiri, a gold medal winner on the ProTour in Iraq and a junior World Cupper, endured a strong challenge from India's Arjun Ghosh before snatching a thrilling 3-2 win in his group opener. He went on to rout the competition's youngest competitor, 12-year-old Hammed Osibanjo of Nigeria 3-0 in his second tie.
Also enhancing their hopes of qualifying were India junior number one Abhishek Yadav, Anirban Ghosh, Nishaad Shah and the last edition's Cadet runner-up Utkarsh Gupta.
Among the juniors girls, Manika Batra, Narasimha Sundarajan, Suthirtha Mukherjee, Ayhika Mukherjee and Mallika Bhandarkar of India strengthened their chances by registereing two wins each.
The Chinese girls were not far behind with Yang Yanmei, Li Anqi and Sun Xiaotong also enhancing their hopes.
