Winners of the second Jharkhand State Table Tennis Championship. Picture by Uma Shankar Dubey

Jamshedpur, Sept. 29: Bokaro paddlers held sway over the proceedings on the concluding day of the second Jharkhand State Table Tennis Championship by bagging as many as seven titles on the concluding day at the Mohan Ahuja Stadium today.

Neha Singh of Bokaro clinched the women’s singles title by trouncing district-mate Ankita Rai 10-12, 11-8, 12-10, 11-7 11-5 in a gruelling five-setter. However, she compensated her for loss to Neha by pairing up with Neha Nupur to bag the women’s doubles crown, defeating the duo of Neha Singh and Ankansha Kumari of Bokaro 9-11, 11-9, 6-11, 11-8, 11-7. The men’s doubles title was won by Samarjit Singh and M.V. Parthasarthy (Ranchi), who faced tough resistance from his district-mates Souman Karmakar and Sanjay Kumar before finally winning the final 3-11, 12-10, 7-11, 11-3, 13-11.

The junior boys singles crown did not come easy for the talented Sitesh Pandey of Bokaro. The youngster had to sweat it out against districtmate Vikramjit Kumar in the finals which took as many seven sets to decide the fate of the contestants. However, Pandey’s resilience and patience bore fruit as he managed to oust his equally-talented rival 6-11, 4-11, 12-10, 10-12, 12-10, 11-8, 11-8. The junior girls’ title was pocketed by Ankita Rai who defeated Neha Nupur, also of Bokaro, 11-7, 11-7, 7-11, 11-7, 11-5.

Later, the duo of Ankita and Neha teamed up to bag the junior doubles title thrashing Mayuri Kumari and Ankansha Kumari in straight sets 11-2, 11-6, 11-5.

Ankita had lots of reasons to end the championship on a happy note. She drubbed East Singhbhum’s Sona Nishad 11-5, 11-4, 11-5 to bag the sub-junior singles crown. The veteran men’s crown was clinched by Gokul Kumar of East Singhbhum who got the better of N.S. Rao 11-7, 11-8, 9-11, 11-6.

Tata Steel managing director B Muthuraman was the chief guest at the prize distribution ceremony. B.C. Thakur, president Jharkhand State Table Tennis Association, Govind Madhav Sharan president East Singhbhum District Table Tennis Association and Chanchal Chakraborty, secretary ESDTTA, were also present on the occasion.

eom