Howrah (West Bengal), Oct 21 (IANS) Vishwa Deenadayalan of Tamil Nadu completed a hat-trick of Junior Boys titles this season while Diya Chitale of Maharashtra, making the most of the absence of Anusha Kutambale, claimed her first Junior Girls crown in the UTT National Ranking (East Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the Howrah Indoor Stadium here on Monday.
Vishwa defeated Delhi’s Yashansh Malik 4-2 and Diya accounted for state mate Swastika Ghosh 4-1 rather convincingly.
Vishwa, who is India No. 1 and 49 in the world in Under-15 Boys, had a fantastic season which began at Sonepat during the North Zone Championships. He continued with the same determination to add his second crown at Thiruvananthapuram during the South Zone event. With a title here today, he has completed a hat-trick in the season and looked good to add a couple more.
Vishwa started well as he went 2-0 up against Delhi’s Yashansh Malik. The latter, a gutsy player, was not in his elements and it was visible in the first two games. Yet, Yashansh played brilliantly to take a game off him in the third.
He pressed home the slight advantage to go 3-2 up to the discomfiture of the Tamil Nadu boy. In the fourth and fifth games, the Delhi paddler had the measure of his opponent and caught him unawares with his blazing forehands to the right corner of Vishwa apart from his excellent placing which fetched several points.
But the TN boy put the three successive game losses behind and attacked well in the last two games to leave the Delhi boy bleeding, especially winning the last two crucial points in the decider after deuce.
Diya, on the other hand, didn’t face much of an opposition from Swastika. A title winner in the same section last year, Swastika was unable to counter Diya, who not only played with a purpose but also kept her rival engaged all the time, keeping the ball on the table.
With a 3-0 cushion, Diya was the favourite to the title, especially in the absence of the Madhya Pradesh girl, Anusha, who had opted out of the championships here. In fact, Anusha, too, had won both the North and South Zone titles as did Vishwa.
Despite being under pressure, Swastika pulled a game back in the fourth, but could not go any further as Diya wrapped it up in style to deservingly win the crown.
–IANS
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