“Cometh the hour, cometh the man,” goes the famous adage. And that is exactly how one would explain what Alvaro Robles of the PBG Bengaluru Smashers did against Ahmedabad SG Pipers in season five of the Ultimate Table Tennis at the Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai.
With their backs against the wall, trailing 3-6, the Smashers were under enormous pressure as they needed to win five games out of six to ensure a win.
Then Robles walked in and did the unthinkable as he clean-swept Manush Shah in a battle of lefties. The Spaniard took the pace off the ball at regular intervals to keep his opponent on his toes throughout the three games.
After conceding the first game 8-11, Manush tried to claw back in the second game, but his momentum was short-lived as Robles secured four consecutive points off short rallies without breaking a sweat.
The 33-year-old went on to register an 11-8, 11-7, 11-8 win to restore parity at 6-6 with one game to go.
Lily Zhang, who is unbeaten so far as well, made light work of Krittwika Sinha Roy in the final match as she registered a 3-0 win to hand Bengaluru a 9-6 victory.
Earlier, in the women’s singles match, Manika Batra of the Bengaluru Smashers faced a familiar foe in Bernadette Szocs in a rematch of the Paris Olympics Round of 16 clash, where the former registered a dominant 3-0 win.
Earlier, Bernadette started her revenge mission in style as she raced to a 5-2 lead in the first game. Manika committed a number of unforced errors to hand her opponent an early advantage.
But the tables turned when Manika regained her composure and responded well to Bernadette’s deceptive tomahawks. The game ended 11-7 in Manika’s favour.
However, Bernadette switched strategies in the following two games as she constantly targeted the bodyline of Manika, making it difficult for her to shift between backhand and forehand.
Bernadette then continued to trouble Manika as she executed the half-long serves to perfection. The Romanian went on to register a 2-1 win to exact revenge on the Indian paddler.
The evening turned even more fruitful for Bernadette as she partnered up with Manush Shah in the mixed doubles match to collect a 2-1 win against the pair of Manika and Alvaro Robles.
The men’s singles match between Lilian Bardet and Amalraj Antony was a proper humdinger. With the kind of rank disparity between the two players—Bardet is 97th while Amalraj is 493rd in the world—the Frenchman had the upper hand even before entering the arena.
Contrary to popular belief, the momentum swung like a pendulum. Amalraj used his relatively short stature to gain an advantage over his opponent in terms of movement, and even though Lilian won the first game, he couldn’t dictate the terms.
With a good mixture of backhand and forehand defence, Amalraj forced two golden points off consecutive games but managed to win only one as Lilian walked away with a 2-1 win.
Host Chennai Lions all but out of the tournament
The second tie of the evening saw runner-up Chennai Lions facing defending champion Goa Challengers in a rematch of last season’s final.
The host suffered a loss and is almost out of this edition of the UTT. It has just 25 points in four games and will need at least 10 points in the next game to stay in contention for the playoffs.
With a vocal crowd behind him, Sharath Kamal entered the arena for a men’s singles match against Mihai Bobocica.
Sharath got off to an explosive start as he toyed with the Italian, using an array of variations from his massive arsenal of shots. The 42-year-old eventually won the game 11-6.
In the third game, Bobocica switched things up a bit and forced Sharath from one end to the other with long shots on either corner of the table. The Italian took the final game, but crowd-favourite Sharath pocketed the match 2-1 to hand an early advantage for the home side.
Sharath and Sakura Mori’s mixed doubles team faltered yet again. They lost 0-3 against Maria Xiao and Manav Thakkar in a 7-8 loss against U-Mumba on Friday.
And they replicated it against the pair of Harmeet Desai and Yangzi Liu. The Challengers duo were quick on their feet and alternated smoothly, picking points via quick rallies.
Unforced errors were the Lions pair’s villain, as they came so close to finishing out games but were unable to. They succumbed to yet another 0-3 drubbing. The frustration of the loss culminated in Sharath tossing his racquet up in the air in disbelief at what just happened.
The Challengers skipper Harmeet Desai and Yashaswini Ghorpade won their respective singles matches as their side clinched a 9-6 win.
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