Kochi: Top seeds Soumyajeet Sarkar of Centre for Excellence and Madhurika Patkar of Maharashtra advanced to the third round in the boys and girls singles events of the 65th LIC junior national table tennis championships at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium here on Sunday.

Soumyajeet defeated P. Pradeep of Pondicherry 11-8, 11-5, 11-7, 11-8 while Madhurika beat K. Samhita of Andhra Pradesh 11-2, 11-3, 11-8, 11-6.

But players representing Bengal had a bad day losing out on third round berths. Fourth seed Somnath Das lost to Tamil Nadu’s R. Abhishek 6-11, 3-11, 6-11, 7-11. Abhishek Mukherjee lost to PSPB-A’s Devesh Karia 6-11, 7-11, 7-11, 7-11.