Shillong: Several top seeders, including Manika Batra, were knocked out of the 83rd Senior National Table Tennis Championships at the SAI Indoor Stadium in Shillong on Sunday.
Manika Batra was eliminated in her Round of 32 match after losing to RBI’s Ayhika Mukherjee. Ayhika took a 2-0 lead in 3 games and was two points away from winning the match in the best 7 games. However, Manika, who represents the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board, competed to make it 3-3.
This is not the first time Manikahas found herself in previous games. However, he always found a way to fight. This time, however, it was Ayhika who held her nerves. He won the seventh game 11-3 and threw his arm into the air after winning the match point after overcoming his emotions.
Meanwhile, Akash Pal and Prapti Sen of Railway Sports Promotion Board defeated Sumia Jeet Ghosh and Sohana Seni’s Haryana team 3-1 (best of five) in the mixed doubles final.
Old war horse and five-time national champion Momadas proved that age is just a number. After a gap of three years, the 38-year-old advanced to the quarterfinals after defeating teenager and second seed Diya Chatale 4-3 in the women’s singles.
But the eighth seed Prapati Sen failed to go up. Earlier, the promising Archana Kamath lost 4-3 in the Round of 32 to Yashini Sivashankar of Tamil Nadu.
That day I also saw some men’s seeds falling on the side of the road.
Prominent among them are 4th seed Harmeet Desai, 8th seed SFR Snehit, 10th seed Sudhanshu Grover, 11th seed Ronit Bhanja, 12th seed Anthony Amlaraj and 15th seed Deepit Patil.
Though Meghalaya did not make it to the main rounds, the Meghalaya boy playing for Delhi, Aadarsh Om Chhatri was in action against the men’s top player G Sathian but lost 4-0 in the round of 32.
Chhatri, originally from Laimer, Upper Shillong, lived in Meghalaya until Class 4 before pursuing his dream of table tennis and now represents Delhi.
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