Kanpur: West Bengal paddlers dominated in the Under-11 boys’ and girls’ group of first UTT National Ranking Table Tennis championship played at TSH here on Sunday.Bengal’s 5 boys and 6 girls qualified for the main draw in the U-11 group.Maharashtra’s nine players have booked their berth in the main draw. Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Delhi’s seven players each entered into the main draw.In the boys’ category, Maharashtra’s Rajvardhan Tiwari, Naksh Mahajan, Adhiraj Chauhan, Nirmit Kute, and Aarav Bapat qualified. Debanshu Chakraborty, Arjun Sen, Mayukh Sarkar, Arik Datta, and Deepam Sardar from West Bengal, as well as AR Sundaramurthy, M. Nibish, Akhil Vinod, TK Akshat, and M. Muhammad Rehan from Tamil Nadu, also reached the main draw.West Bengal dominated the Under-11 girls’ category. Six of its players—Kritika Saibo, Shivangi Mishra, Ayushika Deb, Arietri Pal, Asmita Paul, and Varenya Sarkar—entered the main draw. Four players each from Haryana, Delhi, and Maharashtra, along with three from Karnataka, also qualified.The Under-11 boys’ and girls’ singles main draws feature 32 players each.The Under-11 main draw will begin on August 17.Several qualifying matches were highly thrilling. Puducherry M. Tashvanth defeated Tamil Nadu’s M. Nibish 8-11, 13-15, 11-9, 11-6, 11-3 in a five-game encounter. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu’s Akhil Vinod beat West Bengal’s Sarabjit Sarkar 11-7, 7-11, 11-9, 5-11, 17-15 in a well contested tie.Earlier, minister Asim Arun, Ramesh Awasthi MP and Arun Pathak MLC jointly inaugurated the championship in which around 3100 TT players of different age groups are participating.Addressing the players, the minister remarked that the Uttar Pradesh Table Tennis Association had been awarded the hosting rights for this prestigious tournament; truly, this offers a glimpse of a ‘Developed India’ (Viksit Bharat). It is a matter of great pride that the government established an institution like TSH and operates it under a PPP model, ensuring that all necessary facilities are available here today.MP Ramesh Awasthi stated that the sport of table tennis was formerly known as Ping-Pong. Today, the sport is popular across the globe. Hosting the national table tennis tournament at TSH is a matter of pride for the entire city.………………….
