Promising paddler Sutirtha Mukherjee led Indian girls to a gold medal finish while the boys had to settle for a silver in the team championship of the Slovak Junior Open at Senec, Slovakia.
Indian girls defeated Serbia 'A' 3-2 in a close summit-clash while Czech Republic 'A' boys brushed aside Indian challenge 3-1 to claim gold in the boy's event.
Sutirtha first defeated Aneta Maksuti 3-2 and then went onto beat Anna Fenyvesi by identical margin in the final match played yesterday.
Earlier, India got off to a good start with Manika Batra staging a great comeback against Anna Fenyvesi in the first match. Despite losing the opening two games Manika won the first match 7-11 3-11 11-4 11-4 15-13.
Reeth Tennison did not face much challenge from Serbian Viktoria Truzsinszki as she comfortably beat her 3-1 to give India a 2-1 lead.
The match was forced into decider after Manika was floored 0-3 by Aneta Maksuti.
The final duel was decided in a cliff-hanger which the 15-year-old Sutirtha won 8-11 11-9 8-11 11-2 16-14 against Fenyvesi to win the team championship.
{{/usCountry}}The final duel was decided in a cliff-hanger which the 15-year-old Sutirtha won 8-11 11-9 8-11 11-2 16-14 against Fenyvesi to win the team championship.
{{/usCountry}}In the boys's event, Sudhanshu Grover and Abhishek Yadav were comprehensively beaten by David Reitspies and Jakub Seibert in their respective singles matches. However, Rohit Rajasekhar gave India a glimmer of hope when he beat Tibor Pavlic of Czech Republic 3-2.
But in the reverse singles match, Abhishek was tamed by David 1-3, with Indian team settling for a silver in the boys event.