Surat: Thirty players in the Youth Boys’ under-11 and 32 in the Youth Girls’ under-11 qualified to make the main draw cut on the opening day of the UTT National Ranking Championships for Season 2022 at the DD Upadhyay Indoor Stadium here today.
Balmiki Veer of Uttar Pradesh and Saturya Banerjee from West Bengal, both title winners in Vadodara, went through the qualification motion to book their berths in the main draw that begins later this evening. Prateek Tulsani of Maharashtra and Taniska Kalbhairav from Karnataka, both of whom fished the runners-up in Vadodara, also had a smooth passage, topping their groups.
They will all play one round each in the second stage, which is played on a knockout basis, tonight.
Hridan Patel of Gujarat was the lone paddler to make the grade from the U-11 Boys category, while two girls–Daniya Godil and Khwaish Tyagi–joined him in the main draw. The qualifiers list has several players from other states, indicating that the competition level is spread evenly across the country.
Tanishka rightfully occupied the top position in Group 1, beating her rivals Batul Kathawala from Daman and Diu 11-1, 11-2, 11-2 and Chinthanaya Nandagopal from Tamil Nadu 11-9, 11-5, 11-5. The second match was a bit tough, but the Karnataka girl went into attacking mode in the second and third games to seal her place.
Saturya was stretched a bit by Maharashtra’s Ludbe Trissha in her second-round match, but the Bengal girl warded off the threat to win it 11-9, 10-12, 11-9, 12-10. In the earlier round, she beat local girl Jeevika Patel 11-7, 11-2, 11-3.
Balmiki easily qualified, thrashing his opponents, Sehajdeep Singh, 11-5, 11-2, 11-1 from Punjab and Sharang Gavali, 11-2, 11-5, 11-2 in Group 1, even as Tusani in Group 3 won his first-round against Pratapsingh Rajput Yug 11-2, 11-3, 11-1, and got a walkover from Vihaan Tak of Rajasthan, who failed to turn up for the match.
Hridan Patel topped Group 6 when he overcame resistance from Karnataka’s Shriram Kiran 11-9, 11-4, 11-5 and Pranil Ajgaonkar of Maharashtra before winning 11-9, 11-7, 11-4.
Among the local girls, Danila Godil topped Group 11, but not before facing a tough first-round match against Aayat Rahman from Assam, who held the first game in the balance after the deuce. Daniya won 12-10 and had it easy in the second. Nevertheless, she lost the third before ending her agony in the fourth with a 12-10, 11-3, 9-11, 11-7 verdict.
In the second round, Daniya defeated Aadishree Singh of Rajasthan 11-4, 11-6, 11-5 to see her passage through.
Khawish Tyagi, too, struggled in her first-round game. But she defeated Vaibhavi Sagangdhar, a wildcard entrant of TTFI, 11-3, 12-10, 11-4. The win must have given her enough confidence to outwit Inkita Bora from West Bengal 11-5, 11-2, 11-5 in the second round.
The Youth Boys and Girls U-15 qualifiers have also begun on the day, but they will complete their league engagements only tomorrow.
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–TTFI
