State girls Manushree, Srushti into semis
Manushree Patil and Srushti Haleangadi, both from Maharashtra took contrasting routes towards setting up a clash in the junior girl’s semi-finals of the 11Even Sports National Ranking (Central Zone) Table Tennis Championships.
In quarter-final matches, Manushree representing Maharashtra ‘A’ encountered quite a struggle before getting the better of Surbhi Patwari of West Bengal 3-2 (11-7, 6-11, 4-11, 11-7, 11-9), Srushti representing Maharashtra ‘B’ did not have to exert too much as she quickly disposed of Varuni Jaiswal of Telagana 4-0 (118, 11-6, 12-10, 11-8), at the Abhay Prashal, here, on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Siddesh Pande of Maharashtra ‘A’ and Sanish Ambekar of Maharashtra ‘B’ both came through in their respective second round matches. Pande blanked Arnab Sarkar of West Bengal 3-0 (11-6, 15-13, 11-7), while Ambekar outplayed Rajasthan’s Ojha Shubham 3-0 (11-4, 13-11, 11-6)
In men’s action, Omkar Torgalkar of Maharashtra ‘A’ defeated Tamil Nadu’s Divak Kishore Kumar 4-2 (11-9, 8-11, 11-5, 7-11, 11-9, 1311) in a first round match and will next clash with top seed Sanil Shetty of PSPB in the second round.
Sanish Ambekar of Maharashtra ‘B’, also progressed to the second after he beat Pankaj Vishwakarma of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board 4-1 (12-10, 11-4, 8-11, 12-10, 11-9).