Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 23 (PTI) Railways pair of Akash Pal and Poymantee Baisya lifted their game at crucial junctures to beat Railways-West Bengal duo of Ravindra Kotiyan and Prapti Sen 3-2 in the mixed doubles final of the second UTT National Ranking Championships here on Monday.
Nothing separated the two finalists as they kept winning the alternate games until the fourth.
But Akash and Poymantee upped the ante with a better understanding in the decisive fifth game and forced their rivals into committing errors. After that, everything fell into place for the Railway’s pair, which seized a solid lead to finish the match.
The top male players sailed into the singles quarterfinals without a hiccup. But the women’s section saw fourth seed Archana Kamath, sixth seed Reeth Rishya and eighth seed Reeth Rishya biting the dust.
Though Reeth exited in the first round, going down 1-3 to qualifier Priyadarsini Das of RBI, Archana lasted the first two rounds before young Yashaswini Ghorpade beat her in the pre-quarterfinals.
An out-of-form Archana took the first game comfortably, but a confident Yashaswini routed her in the next. In fact, the Karnataka player had a tough second round, which she won 3-2 against Nilishma Sarkar of West Bengal.
Carrying her form into the pre-quarters, Yashaswini steadied herself after the first-game loss and toppled the former national champion from PSPB.
Reeth went 0-2 down quickly against an attacking Priyadarsini before pulling off a win in the third game after a deuce and some struggle. However, she failed to grab the chance and lost to the RBI player.
Top-seeded Sreeja and second-seed Moumita Dutta kept their form intact, as did qualifier Ayhika Mukherjee and fifth-seed Sutirtha. All of them would fancy their chances of a shot at the title.
In men’s singles, Harmeet Desai, despite dropping a game, gathered himself well to beat Aakash from Karnataka 3-1. But second seed Manav, third seed Snehit, and fourth seed Sharath won in straight games against their opponents Raegan Albuquerque, Balamurugan and Abhishek Yadav respectively.
PB Abhinand from Tamil Nadu displayed his skills against Anirban Ghosh, while Yashansh Malik and seventh seed Akash Pal joined the biggies in their quest to win the crown.
Source: PTI News
