UTT | Jaipur Patriots proves too good for Chennai Lions

Jaipur Patriots secure first win in Ultimate Table Tennis against Chennai Lions, setting the stage for future matches.

In a tale of contrasting halves, Jaipur Patriots overcame Chennai Lions to register its maiden win in the sixth edition of the Ultimate Table Tennis at the EKA Arena on Tuesday.

Despite the eventual margin of 9-6 indicating a close contest, one cannot describe the Patriots’ victory as nail-biting. After all, the Patriots had raced to an unassailable 8-0 lead. But by the time Fan Siqi — the first Chinese entrant in the UTT — conceded the last game of the tie to Britt Earland, the Lions camp wore a cheerful look.

In a league where every game won matters a lot in the eventual standings, the six-game winning spree despite having lost the battle could prove handy for the Lions in the eventual war.

In that respect, Fan’s exploits and Payas Jain’s clean slate in singles has kept the Lions’ in the qualification race despite losing both their ties so far.

The proceedings, however, underlined just how crucial the three golden points were in the opening singles between American Kanak Jha and Kirill Gerassimenko. Had Jha not converted each of the three golden points, the scoreline could well have finished in favour of the Lions.

But Jha kept his nerve as Gerassimenko ended up losing six games to give Patriots the early advantage. Fancied Sreeja Akula then mixed her long-pimpled backhand and powerful forehand winners to double the advantage with a 3-0 scoreline against Poymantee Baisya.

The singles players of Patriots then combined in the mixed doubles to take the first two games off Payas and Fan to seal the tie.