The Hindu : Can Basak repeat Raipur Act?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 16, 2002

Sport

Sport - Table Tennis

Can Basak repeat Raipur Act?

By Our Sports Reporter

INDORE OCT. 15. If the National rankings are any indicator, then Soumyadeep Roy and Mouma Das, both from the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB), should be the top contenders for the men's and women's titles in the Central India National Ranking table tennis championship here.

But the rankings have been rendered into a mockery for quite some time now.

In the recent past, there have been several occasions when higher rated players lost to the lesser ones. The now familiar inconsistency of the seeds just about shows how serious the players are about these events.

In the 2001 championship at Raipur, Arup Basak had returned from a six-month ban imposed by the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), and swept all the rankers to prove his point. Basak is not in the best of form, but even now has the ability to disprove the seeding system.

Though Basak will look to defend his title, more pressure will be on Soumyadeep Roy and Subhajit Saha. Both have returned from the Busan Asian Games with nothing much to boast of.

After Chetan Baboor withdrew from the Asiad squad to pursue his studies, the TTFI persisted with sending Roy and Saha for the individual events.

As far as teams are concerned, PSPB and Railways, will continue to hold the sway.

It would however be interesting to see if some unrated player springs a surprise or two in the initial stages. At the inter-institutional championship in Delhi, T. Pradeepa of the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) had conquered the PSPB forte by beating Mantu Ghosh in the women's singles event. Pradeepa is seeded second here and will represent Tamil Nadu.

Mantu was at the receiving end in the Raipur event also. Then, N.R. Indu had rallied from 1-3 deficit to win the title. Seeded third here, it would be good opportunity for Mantu to get back into the title-winning frame.

As much as 587 entries have been received by the Madhya Pradesh Table Tennis Association, which is hosting the event in Abhay Prashal indoor stadium built on the famous cricket ground of the Holkars.

The qualifying rounds begin on Wednesday. The main draw will be played from October 18 to 20. The championship will be held in six categories: men, women, junior boys, junior girls, sub-junior boys and sub-junior girls.

Bengal has sent the maximum entries— 80--followed by Tamil Nadu (63), Maharashtra (57), TTFI Academy (34), Delhi and Railways (26 each) and others.

The Rs. 1.25 lakh event offers prize money to the quarterfinalists and above. The men's champion gets Rs. 30,000 and runner-up Rs. 15,000; the women's winner gets Rs. 15,000 and the runner-up Rs. 7,500.

The seeding: men: 1. Soumyadeep Roy (PSPB), 2. Subhajit Saha (PSPB), 3. Sourav Chakraborty (Rlys), 4. S. Raman (PSPB), 5. Ranbir Das (Rlys), 6. A. Sarath Kamal (Rlys), 7. Shivaji Dutta (Rlys), 8. R. Rajesh (LIC), 9. Arup Basak (PSPB), 10. Shubham Choudhary (Rlys).

Women: 1. Mouma Das (PSPB), 2. T. Pradeepa (LIC - TN), 3. Mantu Ghosh (PSPB), 4. N.R. Indu (PSPB), 5. Anandita Chakraborty (Rlys), 6. Poulomi Ghatak (PSPB), 7. M.S. Maithili (PSPB), 8. Mamta Prabhu (Rlys), 9. Susmita Ray (Rlys), 10. Vishakha Bijoy (Rlys).

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