Sport - Table Tennis

PSPB paddlers prevail

By D. Ravi Shankar

PANVEL, JAN. 27. Petroleum Sports Promotion Board has proved to be a cut above the rest in the National table tennis scene.

Its men's team scored its 11th win in the National championship, including its third in a row, while the women collected their 13th trophy. The women thus retained the Jayalakshmi Cup while the men again engraved their names on the Barna Bellack Cup, the symbol of National supremacy in team table tennis.

The women's final began on a blazing note with Poulomi Ghatak opening up a 7-0 lead over Mamta Prabhu. Bouncing around the court, Poulomi looked like she was going to close the game at 10-0 without conceding a point when she served into the net to give Mamta her only point of the game.

In the second game, Mamta led 5-2 before Poulomi came right back. Unleashing a string of powerful smashes, she went into the lead and closed out the game at 11-7. Mamta's challenge had effectively ended and Poulomi won the third without raising a sweat.

Cruise mode

The whirlwind start had put PSPB in cruise mode. Mouma Das, in spite of being slightly erratic in her match against Anindita, had enough in her repertoire to win the first two games, though in a tough contest. Mouma went on to tamely surrender the third game but after a pep talk from her team came back charged up to win the next one for the match.

The third fixture saw N.R. Indu being tested severely before coming out on top. Indu battled to win the first two games and lost the third. She had to pull out all stops to win the fourth after a see-saw battle at 14-12.

Sharath shines

In the men's final, Sharath Kamal took a while to get into his groove and even dropped the second game. Though Anirban rattled off a number of booming smashes, Sharath's amazing returns thrilled the spectators and left Anirban depressed.

A hard fought 12-10 win for Sharath in the third took the wind out of Anirban's sails and Sharath signed off the match with a thumping smash in the fourth game.

RSPB's Sourav Chakraborthy has added a couple of kilos to his frame after an injury that had kept him out of competition for some time. He has not lost his penchant for stroke-play as was evident in his match against Soumyadeep Roy.

The match went to five games with Sourav coming up trumps by winning the last two with comfortable margins.

Subhajit Saha, who dropped the first game to Prithviraj Bose, made amends by winning the next three in a facile manner to make it 2-1 for PSPB.

Sharath Kamal was too good for Sourav in the reverse singles, pulling ahead in the first game and wearing down his opponent in the next two.

An American on show

Meanwhile, the preliminary rounds of the individual events started on Thursday and it would see a foreign player for the first time.

John Leach, a 15-year-old from the United States and who plays at the Angby Club in Stockholm, is on a short visit here to see his father who teaches at the ISB, Hyderabad.

While Leach wanted to witness the tournament his family wanted him to be part of the action, if permitted. The technical committee discussed the issue and decided to let Leach play. He will play in the men's individual event as part of the Andhra Pradesh squad.

Incidentally, Leach's sister had participated at the World junior championship in Cairo.

The results (finals): Men: PSPB bt RSPB 3-1 (Sharath Kamal bt Anirban Nandi 11-7, 6-11, 12-10, 11-3; Soumyadeep Roy lost to Sourav Chakraborty 13-15, 11-8, 11-9, 6-11, 5-11; Subhajit Saha bt Prithviraj Bose 8-11, 11-5, 11-7, 11-4; Sharath bt Sourav 11-4, 11-8, 11-9.

Women's (final): PSPB bt RSPB 3-0 (Poulomi Ghatak bt Mamta Prabhu 11-2, 11-7, 11-4; Mouma Das bt Anindita Chakraborty 11-9, 11-8, 5-11, 11-7; N.R. Indu bt S. Prasanna Devi 11-8, 11-9, 8-11, 14-12.

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