Paddlers Sreeja and Snehit win bronze medals at UTT
Hyderabad-based international table tennis players — Akula Sreeja and S. Fidel R. Snehit — bagged women’s and men’s bronze medals respectively in the UTT National Ranking (Central Zone) Table Tennis Championships being held in Abhay Prashal Indoor Stadium in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, on Thursday. They lost to the ultimate winners in the semifinals to settle for bronze.
Top seed Sreeja, representing Reserve Bank of India (RBI), narrowly missed an opportunity of playing the second consecutive finals as she lost to Divya Chitala Parag of Maharashtra 3-4
(11-8, 8-11, 11-8, 12-10, 7-11, 311, 4-11). Sreeja, who sailed through till this stage of the tournament without much effort, looked very comfortable till the fourth game but she lost her rhythm thereafter. Divya upped the ante and showed composure to outsmart the title winner of the previous national ranking tournament. Earlier in the quarterfinals, Sreeja beat Anusha Kutumbala (MP) 4-0 (11-6, 11-4, 11-6, 1210) and had outsmarted Anannya Basak (Mah) 4-0
(11-7, 11-3, 11-9, 11-8) in the pre-quarters.
Ninth seed Snehit registered a stunning victory against No.2 seed and former World No.1 in youth category Manav Thakkar 43 (6-11, 11-6, 11-13, 3-11, 12-10,
11-8, 11-8) in a cliffhanger in the quarterfinals. Being 1-3 down, Snehit clawed back from the jaws of defeat and made it to the semifinals. But he lost to the No.3 seed Harmeet Desai 1-4 (11-8, 811, 8-11, 7-11, 8-11) in his maiden semifinals of the season. Earlier in the prequarterfinals, Snehit had beaten Jeet Chandra (AAI) 4-0 (12-10, 11-9, 11-9, 14-12).
“It is indeed a bad day for us. It was going too well till the semifinals for both, giving an impression that they were all set to win titles but it didn’t work out,” Somnath Ghosh, coach at MLR-UTT Academy in Hyderabad said.