Nandini stuns defending champ Poymantee

Nandini stuns defending champ Poymantee

Perhaps egged on by the loudspeakers blaring from a school adjoining the Pandit Dindayal Upadhyay Indoor Stadium, the dark horses played out of their skin to stretch the favourites in the 86th senior National table tennis championship.

While young Nandini Saha of Bengal ousted defending champion and eighth seed Poymantee Baisya of Railways in a thrilling five-game encounter on Friday, Gujarat’s Pratha Pawar and Assam’s Priyanuj Bhattacharyya fell short by a whisker against women’s top seed Sreeja Akula and men’s second seed Ankur Bhattacharjee respectively in the singles main draw round of 64.

Despite emerging as a surprising National champion in Panchkula in the previous edition, Poymantee has had a mediocre season. It culminated in the worst possible manner with Nandini overshadowing her in a tense battle.

Sreeja — making her maiden appearance at this edition — took time to get acclimatised to the conditions and found herself trailing 2-1. But the two-time National champion used her forehand top-spin effectively at critical junctures to enter the third round.

Earlier in the evening, young sensation Ankur was stretched to the hilt by Priyanuj – a protege of S. Raman and Bhuvaneshwari In what turned out to be the match of the day, the duo was involved in long and fast rallies with Ankur eventually proving to be too fast for his opponent and converting his third match-point.

Earlier in the first round, 13th seed P.B. Abhinandh of Tamil Nadu was shocked by Arjav Gupta in four games.

Important results: