Shounak to take on Niranjan in U-10 final

MUSCAT — Shounak Kelkar will take on Niranjan Raman in the final of the under-10 singles at the New Makha Enterprisessponsored junior table tennis tournament organised by the Indian Social Club Muscat.

Left-hander Shounak, the defending champion, coasted to a comfortable 11-2, 11-4, 11-0 victory over MSSR Pradyumna in the semifinal to line up a summit clash against Niranjan Raman who had no difficulty in overcoming Hariharan Subramanian 11-4, 11-4, 11-5.

Erica Vaz, who has one league match to play, looks virtually assured of winning the girls’ singles title having won all her league matches so far. In the league matches, Erica defeated Rhea Bhatia 11-8, 11-8, steamrolled over Sneha Narayan 11-0, 11-0, defeated Sakina Riyaz 11-1, 11-2 and defeated her closest rival for the title Aiswarya Subrama- nian 11-5, 11-9.

Aiswarya Subramanian has four wins and the only loss to Erica to put her in the runnerup spot. In the league games, Aiswarya overcame Rhea Bhatia in a marathon match 1214, 11-6, 24-22, defeated Sneha Narayan 11-3, 11-0 and Sakina Riyaz 11-0, 11-4 beat Thejaswi Ramesh 11-5, 11-7 and lost to Erica Vaz 5-11, 9-11.

In the boys’ under-14 semi final league, Sachin Hemanth took top spot and qualified for the final with wins against Kenneth Vaz 11-6, 11-4, 11-7 defeated Armaan 11-8, 11-4, 11-7 and overcame Avinash Mukund 11-7, 11-9, 6-11, 11-3.

Kenneth Vaz defeated Armaan 11-3, 11-3, 11-4 and lost to Sachin. He is yet to play Avinash Mukund to decide the second place. Avinash Mukund also has one victory, over Armaan 4-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-9 while losing to Sachin.