Han Ying, Gacina set up Challengers victory over United

After four matches each in the six-team league, Challengers moved to the second spot with 58 points, behind leader Falcons (61).

Han Ying won five out of six games in contrast to World No 8 Wong Chun Ting, who could only win three out of six.

In a neck-and-neck tie that saw a thrilling finish, World No. 9 Han Ying maintained her unbeaten run in the Ultimate Table Tennis to subdue Fu Yu and complete Shaze Challengers’ 15-12 triumph over Maharashtra United here on Monday.  

After four matches each in the six-team league, Challengers moved to the second spot with 58 points, behind leader Falcons (61). United held the fourth spot with 54 points, one behind Dabang Smashers.  

With the last round of league remaining, Yoddhas and Mavericks face elimination as they share the place with 48 points.

 

Monday’s encounter featured the highest-ranked male and female players of the league in the opposite camps. As it turned out, Han Ying won five out of six games in contrast to World No 8 Wong Chun Ting, who could only win three out of six.  

In fact, in the tie-deciding contest, what took the pressure off Han Ying was her teammate Li Ping’s surprise 2-1 victory over Wong Chun Ting in the penultimate match.  

This result put the Challengers 13-11 up and left Han Ying, who represents Germany, with the task of winning at least one of the last three games against the World No. 37 representing Portugal.  

Han Ying, who had earlier beaten Pooja Sahasrabudhe 3-0, claimed the first game 11-7 to clinch the tie for the Challengers. But she was not finished with her job for the evening. She went on to win the next 11-5 before Fu Yu won a consolation set for her team.  

Before Han Ying, Andrej Gacina won five games for Challengers in the first half of the contest. He blitzed past Harmeet Desai 3-0 and Joao Monteiro 2-1. In fact, Challengers could have won by a bigger margin had Mouma Das not tossed away a 7-2 lead in the final set against Fu Yu and Soumyajit Ghosh not squandered a 8-2 final-set advantage against Wong Chun Ting.  

The results:  

Shaze Challengers beat Maharashtra United  15-12 (Andrej Gacina bt Harmeet Desai 11-6, 11-9, 11-5; Mouma Das lost to Fu Yu 11-5, 7-11, 7-11; Ghosh and Petrissa Solja lost to Harmeet Desai and Liu Jia 5-11, 2-11, 11-7; Gacina bt Joao Monteiro 11-6, 11-9, 7-11; Solja lost to Liu Jia 5-11, 5-11, 10-11; Ghosh lost to Wong Chun Ting 8-11, 11-2, 9-11; Han Ying bt Pooja Sahasrabudhe 11-3, 11-7, 11-5; Li Ping bt Wong Chun Ting 6-11, 11-9, 11-8; Han Ying bt Fu Yu 11-7, 11-5, 8-11)