Roshan sails into second round

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, February 20

Roshan Joshi from Madhya Pradesh had to rely on his skills to defeat Mathivanan Kalaivanan of Karnataka in a tough outing 12-10, 11-8, 7-11, 11-13 and 11-7 before moving into the second round during the opening day of the UTT 82nd National Table Tennis Championship at Tau Devi Lal Stadium here today.

Though first-round matches did not throw any surprises, a few results added glitter as they went the full distance. Joshi led 2-0, but the Karnataka boy levelled the score to give his rival a scare. In the decider, Joshi took a sizable lead and maintained it throughout to win.

Similarly, Kerala’s Aswin Gokul coasted along nicely with a 2-0 lead before Dishant Parida from Odisha shifted gears to beat the Kerala paddler 8-11, 16-18, 11-9, 11-5 and 11-6.

Aditya Dev from Assam followed the same path, taking the last three games to beat Goa’s Reagan Pinto 7-11, 2-11, 11-5, 11-7 and 11-6. Manipur’s Denial Rajkumar downed Nitin Singh Gusain of Uttarakhand 8-11, 12-10, 12-14, 11-9 and 11-9 in another first-round thriller.

Another five-game match was played between Sameer Sahni of the FCI and Vaibhav Dahibhate of Central Revenue Services Board.

Sahni won 9-11, 7-11, 11-8, 11-5 and 11-5, but not before facing initial hiccups. Railways’ Kiranjoy Pushilal had to wage a grim battle against Sachin Hemanth of the TNTTA after trailing 0-2 to make a match of it. In the end, his experience over the Chennai rival stood him in good stead as he won 6-11, 7-11, 11-9, 11-5 and 11-7.

Delhi’s Parth Virmani, who represents Central Revenue Services Board, met his match in Sarth Mishra from Uttar Pradesh. An attacking Parth was rusty and it reflected in his first extended game, which he lost 15-17. However, he won the second before losing the third. With pressure mounting, the experienced paddler steadied to end Sarth’s resistance and win 15-17, 11-2, 9-11 11-7 and 11-7.

The battle now resumes tomorrow morning with the interesting last-round matches between the top two players in each group. The 60 qualifiers from the group matches will join the 16-seeded players in the main draw with 52 byes on offer. The top-16, including A Saratha, G Sathiyan, Harmeet Desai, Vikas Thakkar, Anthony Amalraj and the rest of those with byes, join the real action from the round of 64 tomorrow evening.