Harmeet Desai and Sutirtha Mukherjee turned out to be the biggest casualties in the round of 32 of the 11Sports-West Zone National-ranking table tennis tournament at the Balewadi Sports Complex on Sunday.
Harmeet, seeded fifth, lost to Shreyal Telang of Karnataka 11-3, 11-9, 10-12, 4-11, 11-8, 11-7 while Sutirtha, the top seed, went down fighting to her sparring partner Priyadarshini Das of West Bengal 8-11, 11-8, 11-5, 11-8, 9-11, 5-11, 11-8 in the women’s category.
It was an engrossing match between Priyadarshini and Sutirtha as both played an attacking game giving the sparse crowd some exciting moments.
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In fact, Priyadarshini and Sutirtha train together at Somyadeep TT Centre in Kolkata for the past two years, and both knew each other’s game quite well.
After the win, the 20-year-old pumped her fist in joy for this was her first win over a much-higher ranked player this season.
“My strategy to keep the ball in play somehow and go for the kill when it mattered. I know Sutirtha is good in rallies. I attacked better today,” said Priyadarshini.
In the last match of the day, India’s top-ranked paddler Sharath Kamal, seeded 13th here, had to struggle to eke out an 11-8, 7-11, 11-8, 11-7, 6-11, 8-11, 11-9 win over the 21-year-old Sanish Ambekar of Maharashtra.
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