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| Cadet boys’ group top seed El Sayed Hussain serves at the GSA open and inter-club table tennis championship at Abita Indoor Hall in Guwahati. Picture by Biju Boro |
Guwahati, July 23: It was a one-girl show at the Abita Indoor Hall here today as Mahasweta Batsallya ruled the roost in the cadet, sub-junior and junior girls’ events of the Guwahati Sports Association’s Mohan Chandra Das and Sarala Bala Das open and inter-club table tennis championship.
In the junior girls’ event, Mahasweta qualified for the quarterfinals along with Kakali Lahkar, Jula Das, Snigdha Chowdhury, Aparna Deka, Salini Brahma, Tridisha Goswami and Nidhi Kataky. The quarterfinals will be played on Saturday.
In the sub-junior category, Mahasweta set up a semifinal clash with Snigdha Chowdhury, beating Jula Das in the quarters. Singdha defeated Sneha Saikia in the round of eight.
In the other semifinal, Kakoli Lahkar will meet Premee Bora. In today’s matches, Kakoli got the better of Sushmita Das while Premee beat Salini Brahma. The semifinals will be played tomorrow.
In the cadet girls’ event, Mahasweta will play against Premee Bora for the title. She beat Jasmin Akhtar in the semifinals while Bora eased past Sneha Saikia.
The cadet boys’ pre-quarterfinals continued till late this evening. The final will be played tomorrow. The sub-junior boys’ pre-quarterfinals and junior boys’ event started at 4 pm this afternoon.
The men and women’s events will get under way tomorrow. The finals will be held on Sunday. The senior event has been robbed of some of its sheen as most leading paddlers opted out due to their preoccupation with other tournaments and assignments from their employers.
Altogether 127 paddlers from 10 affiliated clubs of GSA are taking part in the four-day meet. The open events began yesterday while the inter-club meet got underway this evening.
Participating clubs include Young Blue, Sporting Union, Pragati Samaj, Wary SC, Smriti Sangha, Table Tennis Club, Interact Club of Don Bosco, Ankurjyoti, Delhi Public School Club and Dynamo.
