Sharath, Prapti win north zone TT c’ship

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, October 21

Top seeded A Sharath Kamal defeated Soumyajit Ghosh 4-3 to win the men’s singles final of the UTT National Ranking North Zone Table Tennis Championships, at the Tau Devi Lal Multipurpose Indoor Stadium, today.

The 39-year-old top-seed led 3-1, but a mentally strong Ghosh staged a good recovery to level the score 3-3 before Kamal ended his chance of a title victory, the Haryana paddler had been searching for quite some time.

For Kamal, it was the first zonal title after Vizag in 2016. Kamal should have finished in the sixth game itself when he led 5-0. He, however, allowed Ghosh to claw his way back to take the issue to the decider. In the last game, Kamal showed his class and wasted little time while picking up the winner’s purse of Rs84,000.

The women singles had two worthy players in eighth-seed Prapti Sen and unseeded Swastika Ghosh making it to the final for the first time. The pendulum of fortune swung from one extreme to another until the decider. But for this, one could predict their approaches. However, Prapti made fewer mistakes than Swastika. That made the difference between lifting the trophy and losing the grip over it. Despite being unwell, the little girl from Kolkata seized the opportunity to take home the prize money of Rs72,000.