The Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai bore a sorry look yet again on Saturday with the Ultimate Table Tennis finding it increasingly onerous to scour for takers for the empty seats strewn across the main hall.
You know the struggle is real when even the sound of cool air gushing in from centralised vents placed roughly 25-30 feet above the head in the media tribune is audible for a large part of the day.
Although the enthusiasm from spectators has been found wanting, it hasn’t affected the intensity inside the bullring.
On the third matchday, U Mumba TT scripted history when it struck down Dabang Delhi TTC 9-6 for the first time ever and debutant Ahmedabad SG Pipers shocked the defending champion Athlead Goa Challengers 10-5 into submission.
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There was a brief period when the said intensity spilled off the table as well with Mumba’s Quadri Aruna leaving the arena unimpressed that the league didn’t have a review system.
In the opening fixture of the first tie, a match-point drama saw Aruna appealing to the umpire Sumit Bahri to show the replay on the giant screen after he thought he saw the ball land on his opponent Sathiyan Gnanasekaran’s side of the table.
Sathiyan was visibly displeased at the request, vehemently shaking his head and insisting on having the customary handshake after the point was awarded. This was the Indian paddler’s first-ever victory over the Nigerian across all tournaments.
Sutirtha’s grand entry
The 20-year-old Diya Chitale of Dabang Delhi may have won a staggering 12 gold, six silver, and eight bronze medals in various national and international tournaments over the past two years, but here she was pitted against Sutirtha Mukherjee.
The Sutirtha, who alongside childhood friend Ayhika Mukherjee, stunned China’s Chen Meng and Wang Yidi in the women’s doubles quarterfinal to ensure a historic medal for India at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
Sutirtha eventually went on to eat and leave no crumbs, serving with the short-pimpled Dr. Neubauer Killer rubber to leave Chitale gasping for breath at 11-6, 11-7, 11-4.
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It was a good day in the office for Manav Thakkar, the first Indian to claim the World No. 1 spot in the U-18 and U-21 category, as he helped his team across the finish line. Armed with a right-handed shakehand grip, Manav stayed close to the table during both the mixed doubles and singles rounds to outwit his opponents by picking the lengths early and with strategic manoeuvers.
Spain’s Maria Xiao, who had partnered up with Manav, used her long levers to wrest control from her opponents and hand Mumba a 11-8, 11-9, 8-11 win.
Defending champs humbled
The SG Pipers got off the blocks in dominant fashion in the second tie of the day, subjecting the Challengers to two clean sweeps on the trot.
Harmeet’s humdrum of a campaign continued; the 2023 senior Nationals winner has now lost five of his six singles games in UTT 2024.
Yashaswini Ghorpade, the U-19 national champion, too is yet to claim a win in the ongoing iteration. World No. 13 Bernadette Szocs, the best-ranked player in the franchise-based league, mercilessly annihilated Ghorpade 11-6, 11-7, 11-3 with an overwhelming 75 per cent of her points coming on serve.
The contest was all but over when Szocs and the ever-aggressive Manush Shah combined to snatch two games off Harmeet and Yangzi Liu. With eight points in the bag, the remaining singles fixtures were mere courtesy.
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