TABLE TENNIS | Petroleum and Railways set up title clashes

PSPB men secure victory over Delhi in a nail-biting match, setting up a final showdown with RSPB.

Petroleum Sports Promotion Board’s (PSPB) bid to lift the men’s team championship crown for the 23rd edition in succession hit a minor bump against Delhi before they set up a final showdown against Railways Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) in the 86th senior National table tennis championship here on Tuesday.

Yashansh Malik gave Delhi an ideal start by stunning the fancied G. Sathiyan in the opening rubber. Promising youngster Payas Jain was on the verge of repeating the heroics on what turned out to be a below-part outing for Sathiyan. However, Sathiyan saved three match-points in the deciding game to scrape past Payas and stamp PSPB’s victory.

In the other semifinal, RSPB halted the march of giant-killer Assam 3-1. Riding on Priyanuj Bhattacharyya’s heroics, Assam had ousted eighth seed Uttar Pradesh and TTFI-1 in the quarterfinals, but Anirban Ghosh made a stunning comeback after trailing 2-0 in a match dominated with long rallies to seal the deal for Railways.

Both RSPB and PSPB will also face each other in the women’s team championship final. While the PSPB girls hardly sweated against Gujarat in the semifinal, RSPB’s Kaushani Nath and Poymantee Baisya had close escapes against Maharashtra’s Taneesha Kotecha and Ananya Chande, respectively.

The results: Men: Semifinals: PSPB bt Delhi 3-1 (G. Sathiyan lost to Yashansh Malik 11-9, 11-9, 6-11, 7-11,4-11; Ankur Bhattacharjee bt Payas Jain 11-5, 13-11, 11-8; Harmeet Desai bt Sudhanshu Grover 11-8, 9-11, 11-9, 11-5; Sathiyan bt Payas 11-9, 4-11, 5-11, 12-10, 12-10); RSPB bt Assam 3-1 (Anirban Ghosh bt Shankab Barua 11-4, 11-7, 11-6; Jeet Chandra lost to Priyanuj Bhattacharyya 10-12, 11-7, 1-11, 6-11; Ronit Bhanja bt Agniv Bhaskar Gohain 11-4, 11-2, 12-10, Anirban bt Priyanuj 5-11, 10-12, 14-12, 11-7, 11-3).

Quarterfinals: PSPB bt Telangana 3-0; Delhi bt Tamil Nadu 3-0; Assam bt TTFI-1 3-1; RSPB bt Maharashtra 3-1.

Women: Semifinals: RSPB bt Maharashtra 3-0 (Sutirtha Mukherjee bt Senhora D’Souza 10-12, 11-9, 11-5, 11-5; Kaushani Nath bt Taneesha Kotecha 2-11, 11-4, 7-11, 15-13, 11-5; Poymantee Baisya bt Ananya Chande 11-9, 6-11, 5-11, 11-7, 12-10); PSPB bt Gujarat 3-0 (Yashaswini Ghorpade bt Oishiki Joardar 11-5, 11-7, 11-8; T. Reeth Rishya bt Krittwika Sinha Roy 12-10, 11-5, 11-9; Sayali Wani bt Frenaz Chipia 11-8, 11-8, 11-13, 11-5).