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Maharashtra win maiden women's team title
Maharashtra women created history on Thursday, winning their maiden Jayalaxmi Cup after scoring a thrilling 3-2 win against North Bengal, in the Senior National Table Tennis Championship.
Maharashtra women created history on Thursday, winning their maiden Jayalaxmi Cup after scoring a thrilling 3-2 win against North Bengal, in the Senior National Table Tennis Championship.
In the men's section, defending champions Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) maintained their supremacy, winning the Barna Balack Cup for the 16th time, blanking Tamil Nadu 3-0.
Experienced Mamta Prabhu, who played a key role in Maharashtra's sensational win over 15-time champions PSPB in the semifinal on Wednesday, again rescued the side with a fascinating win in the decider against Nandita Saha.
After losing the first set, Prabhu bounced back to win the second before losing the third, thus handing the advantage to Saha.
In the fourth set too, Prabhu was trailing 3-6, but before things got out of hand, Prabhu slammed back-to-back topspins to level the score and then surged ahead for an 11-7 win to bring parity.
Excitement grew in the decider, but Saha could not cope up with the pressure mounted by Mamta, who wrested the set and title with an 11-8 score-line.
Barring Amal Raj, no other PSPB men paddler lost even a single game. Sharath Kamal knocked out Raja RS 11-6, 11-7, 11-8 in the first singles.
Amal dropped the second game against G Vinod before winning 11-5, 4-11, 11-8, 11-9 and finally Soumyadeep Roy defeated Sivananda Seshadri to complete the rout.
