By Kirti Patil
Pune: Taking a cue from her teammate Manush Shah’s win over Swedish Champion Jon Persson Archana Kamath outpaced the two-time Indian National champion Sreeja Akula 4-11, 11-7, 611-6 as the home team Puneri Paltan TT scored its first win in a thrilling fashion, winning 8-7 over Dabang Delhi TTC in the ongoing IndianOil Ultimate Table Tennis Season 4 tie at the Badminton Hall of the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Mahalunge-Balewadi here on Friday.
Manush fought bravely against Jon Persson from the beginning of the match and won it 2-1 to put Puneri Paltan in the driving seat. The Vadodara-based young player took the first game through a game point. In the second game, Persson effectively put his spin serves on the table which troubled Manush as he found it difficult to return the shots and score points.
Persson won the second game 11-8 before the Indian made swift movements to gain an advantage over his opponent and won the third game 11-4 to clinch the match.
The franchise-based league, promoted by Niraj Bajaj and Vita Dani under the auspices of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), has been a game-changer for Indian table tennis since its inception in 2017.
Earlier,representing Dabang Delhi TTC, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran took the first game with his swift movements, but only just as the former ITTF African-Cup champion Omar Assa came out trumps, winning the match 2-1 in the first match (Men’s Singles) of the tie.
The second match of the tie saw Barbora Balazova of Dabang Delhi TTC beat Puneri Paltan Table Tennis’ Hana Matelova 2-1 to bring her franchise back in the tie. The Slovak paddler found it difficult to match the speed of Hana in the first game as she lost it by a heavy margin of 2-11. However, she made a strong comeback in the match and won the next two games through golden points.
In the third match (Mixed Doubles), Sathiyan and Barbora produced superb coordination to beat Manush Shah and Hana 2-1 and bring the Delhi franchise into the lead for the first time in the tie.
In the last match of the tie Archana played her top game and won 2-1 against her compatriot Sreeja Akula. The Bengaluru-based paddler was at her very best as she took the opening game 11-4 before losing the second by a close margin of 7-11. The third game saw a nail-biting contest between both the promising paddlers and in the end, it was the Puneri Paltan Table Tennis player who won it 11-6 to clinch the tie for her franchise.
The result:
Dabang Delhi T.T.C. lost to Puneri Paltan TT 7-8
(Sathiyan Gnanasekaran lost to Omar Assar1-2 (11-6, 8-11, 4-11)
Barbora Balazova bt Hana Matelova2-1(2-11, 11-10, 11-10)
Sathiyan & Barbora bt Manush Shah & Hana2-1 (10-11, 11-4, 11-7)
Jon Persson lost to Manush 1-2(10-11, 11-8, 4-11)
Sreeja Akula lost to Archana Kamath1-2 (4-11, 11-7, 6-11).
