A gripping battle between two hockey powerhouses

West Bengal-A and Delhi-A men’s teams take the honours

West BengalA defeated DelhiA 32 to win the men’s 60 years and above team event in the UTT Masters National table tennis championship at Saroornagar Indoor Stadium here on Friday. Vivek Kumar Arora was the architect of Bengal’s win as the reliable paddler lived up to his expectations to win his two singles.

The results (finals): Team: Men: 60 years & above: West Bengal-A bt Delhi-A 3-2 (Vivek Kumar Arora bt Anuj Sharma 117, 1412, 116. Subhamoy Chatterjee lost to Sanjay Vashist 1210, 511, 311, 511.

Ram Chandra Rao lost to Anil Kumar Goel 911, 1113, 711; Vivek bt Sanjay 115, 116, 511, 711, 118. Subhamoy bt Anuj 118, 411, 1210, 511, 119). 65 years & above: Delhi-A bt Maharashtra-A 3-2 (Vineet K. Chaudhry lost to Jayant Kulkarni 1513, 1210, 611, 611, 611.

Ravi Vashist bt Avinash Joshi 811, 118, 1210, 116; Ashutosh Kumar lost to Jitendra Mavani 1012, 411, 411.

Ravi bt Jayant 611, 117, 116, 116; Vineet bt Avinash 119, 119, 1012, 511, 118). Individual: 80 years & above: K. Satyanarayan bt B.N. Khazanchi 911, 1210, 1113, 117, 111.

Doubles: Khazanchi & Anand Prakash bt K.V. Krishnamurthy & K. Satyanarayan 118, 113, 114.

Sanjana concedes to Joell in final

An injury forced Sanjana Sirimalla of Telangana to concede to Joell Nichole of Tamil Nadu with the scores at 62, 11 in the latter’s favour in the AlTA women’s tennis final at the Ash Tennis Academy here.

The Indian men’s hockey team will look to pass the litmus test that the formidable Australian side will pose at home when the two face off in a fivematch Test series beginning here on Saturday.

“We aim to finetune our strategies and identify areas for improvement to ensure we are in peak form for the mega event. Our focus will be on executing our game plan effectively and adapting to the challenges posed by the Australian side,” chief coach Craig Fulton said.

Match starts at 2 p.m.