Times News NetworkKanpur: Arunim Agarwal of Delhi drubbed the challenge of Debanshu Chakravarti of West Bengal in five sets encounter and sailed into the semifinal of Under-13 group in UTT National Ranking Table Tennis tournament played at TSH here on Tuesday.Arunim, after losing the first game, staged a comeback and took the lead by the end of the third game. Chakravarty bounced back and got parity in the fourth game. The fifth and final set was a tough one for two players and luck favoured Arunim who won the fifth set and the tie by 5-11, 13-11, 11-3, 9-11, 11-9.Arav Dutta (West Bengal), Rajdeep Biswas (Maharashtra) , Jem Mahalanabish (West Bengal) too entered into the semifinals. Ariv Dutta beat H Tanish (TN) by 11-6, 15-13, 11-7, Rajdeep outplayed Adhiraj Chauhan (Maharashtra) by 11-4, 11-6, 13-11. Gem in the last quarterfinals humbled Ryan Bodharkur by 11-7, 11-6, 10-12, 11-8.Divija Pal of Assam beat Pehal Gupta of UP by 11-8, 6-11, 11-9, 13-11 and moved into semifinals. Mahika of Maharashtra after trailing twice beat her state player Keshika Pukar by 8-11, 11-4, 7-11, 11-6, 11-8 in the second quarterfinal.Assam’s Ishani Gogoi defeated West Bengal’s Aradhya Dey Sarkar 11-4, 11-8, 11-3, and Delhi’s Khyati Pandey beat Uttar Pradesh’s Anishka Gupta 11-9, 11-8, 11-6 to secure berths in the semifinals.UP girls Pehal Gupta and Anishka Gupta journey though ended but they were impressed. Defeating their rivals in pre-quarterfinal they entered into the last eight where they lost to Adhiraj Majumdar of UP qualified for main draw in Under-15 boys’ group. In the qualifying round, he outplayed players of Jharkhand and PSPB by identical margin of 3-1 and entered into the main draw. Earlier, he had qualified for the main draw in the Under-13 boys’ group. He is a player of host TSH.The semifinal and final matches for the Under-11 and Under-13 boys’ and girls’ categories will be played on August 19. The prize distribution ceremony will follow.Beena Lavania (Agra) attended the competition on Tuesday as the chief guest. Sanjeev Pathak, chairman of UPTTA, and Arun Banerjee, secretary, were also present on the occasion.
