PSPB men in cruise mode
Petroleum Sports Promotion Board topped Group A with a clean slate, defeating FCI and Ordinance Factory Sports Control Board with an identical margin of 3-0 in the LPS Bossard 47th all India inter-institutional championships, which began at the Table Tennis Foundation hall in the capital on Tuesday.
It was business as usual for Airports Authority of India in Group B as they defeated LIC and All India Electricity Board 30 respectively, to top their group. RBI accounted for ESIC 3-1 and beat Ministry of Communications and IT 3-0 in Group C. RSPB in Group D retained the top slot with 3-0 wins over Defence Accounts and Department of Atomic Energy.
In Group E, Canara Bank struggled past Air India 3-2 while it was a 3-0 cakewalk against BSNL and in Group F, which consists of four teams, Indian Audit emerged on top with a 3-2 triumph over Central Revenue and then beat both Air Force Sports Control Board and Major Ports Control Board 3-0 to move into the second stage. The second teams that qualified include FCI, IC, ESIC, Defence Accounts, Air India and Central Revenue.
With top four teams getting first round byes, PSPB, AAI, RBI and RSPB will have the luxury of some rest before resuming their intense battle for the team title from second round onwards.
On the women’s side, it was a struggle for the PSPB team to begin with. However, three match points loss to Sanya Sehgal of Indian Audit against former national champion Poulami Ghatak meant a lease line for the champion side as they went on the strength of Manika Batra, who equalled the score after Archana Kamath went down to Swetha Kumaravel 5-11, 8-11, 11-7, 11-5, 10-12.
In the third rubber, Sanya was sitting pretty in the decider and had three match points but she squandered them to let Poulami off the hook as she won three deuces 11-9, 7-11, 11-3, 8-11, 15-13. Then Manika accounted for Swetha in her reverse singles to shut the door on Indian Audit. But for this stuttering start for PSPB, other women teams went through the motions to post easy wins. Despite one more round remaining, one does not see much of a change in the script of top teams qualifying for the second round. As of now, PSPB with two wins, like most others, are through to the second stage.
But the story of the day could well be the open draw for the seeded players in singles which begin from the day after. The draw has thrown open the possibility of top-seeded Sharath Kamal running early into Anthony Amalraj (no. 16 seed) in the pre-quarters and Soumyajit Ghosh (no. 8) in the quarters. On the other hand, no. 2 seed G. Sathiyan is not expected to face any early troubles from the bottom half.
TOP-8 SEEDS Men’s: Achanta Sharath Kamal, G. Sathiyan, Arjun Ghosh, Harmeet Desai, Raj Mondal, Sougata Sarkar, Subhajit Saha, Soumyajit Ghosh. Women’s: Madhurika Patkar, Suthirtha Mukherjee, Pooja Shasrabuddhe, Akula Sreeja, Poulami Ghatak, Manika btra, Takeme Sarkar and Archana Kamath.