PANAJI
Maharashtra boys and girls chose the right city and place to celebrate their early Christmas and New Year together as their ‘A' teams picked three out of four titles on offer in the 11Sports 79th Cadet and Sub-Junior National Table Tennis Championships at the SP Mukherjee Indoor Stadium, Goa University, Taleigao.
The championships organised by Goa Table Tennis Association in collaboration with the Sports Authority of Goa, witnessed exciting finals matches where the Maharashtra teams achieved an unprecedented feat, thanks mainly to three players - Dev Shroff, Diya Chitale and Pritha Vartikar - who shouldered the major burden of a dream-come-true
performance.
The ‘A' teams of Maharashtra beat PSPB Academy 3-2 in Sub-Junior Boys, West Bengal 3-2 in Sub-Junior Girls and blanked West Bengal in Cadet Girls final. Tamil Nadu retained the Cadet Boys crown, beating West Bengal 3-0.
Hosts Goa, spearheaded by India No 2 Shantesh Mapsekar, put up a scintillating performance to emerge creditable bronze medal winners in the Cadet Boys section. In the quarter-finals, the Goa team came back strongly from a 2-1 match deficit to turn the tide for the hosts. Shantesh and Aarav Aiyar held their nerves to win their respective reverse singles to propel Goa into the semi-finals.
In the semis, Goa went down 1-3 to eventual winners Tamil Nadu, who had in their ranks India No 1 Suresh Raj Preyesh. Aaron Colaco and Advait Mudra were the other two members of the bronze medal winning Goa team which was coached by Diljeet Velingker and Raja Dayal.
Parag Chitale from 11 Sports, Vero Nunes, President, Goa TT Association; N Ganeshan, international competition manager and other Table Tennis Federation of India and GTTA officials graced the closing function. Individual events in the national championships will continue over the next three days and will conclude on December 19.
