Fifth-seeded Mouma Das could not take the pressure of facing young legs as the six-time national champion made her exit from the 79th edition of the 11Even Sports Senior Nationals at the Mega Sports Complex at Khelgaon here on Monday.
But the biggest shock was second seed Arjun Ghosh bowing out in the round of 32 to Gujarat’s Manush Shah 2-4 (7-11, 7-11, 3-11, 12-10, 11-6, 5-11).
Swastika Ghosh of Maharashtra sent the veteran packing in the round of 64 with a 11-7, 11-7, 2-11, 14-12, 8-11, 11-6 verdict. Along with her, eight seed Sreeja Akula of RBI bit the dust after losing her R-64 battle to Prapti Sen of West Bengal which went down to the wire. In a remarkable comeback, Prapti won 7-11, 11-8, 9-11, 7-11, 11-6, 11-7, 11-7.
At the far-away table, it was not easy for Manika Batra as Nikhat Banu of RBI challenged her authority before the second seed completed 11-4, 8-11, 16-14, 8-11, 11-9, 8-11, 11-8 triumph. Despite winning the Junior and Youth titles, Archana Kamath’s woes continued before the Bengaluru girl beat North Bengal’s Sagarika Mukherjee 1-11, 8-11, 11-6, 5-11, 11-6, 11-6, 11-6, 11-9.
With age catching up with Mouma, it was obvious that the veteran would struggle. And young Swastika exposed the chinks in Mouma’s armour more than adequately. Mouma did manage to take two games off her opponent but that was not good enough. Credit must go to Prapti who pulled it off against Sreeja despite being in 1-3 arrears, taking three games like Archana, after Sagarika led 3-1.
Manika was rather poor on the day with Nikhat acquitting herself well against the second seed. Playing without pressure, the RBI woman took the issue to the decider but Manika somehow managed to put it across her rival.
Hardly a sweat was dropped by men seeds as they sailed into round of 32. But there were some interesting matches among the qualifiers, including the ones between Junior National champion Jeet Chandra of West Bengal and Akash Nath of North Bengal, Rohan Joshi of Madhya Pradesh and Sougata Sarkar, also of West Bengal, and Omkar Torgalkar and Subham Oja.
Jeet was down 0-2 but played brilliantly to take the next four games and outwit his North Bengal rival 10-12, 6-11, 12-10, 11-8, 11-6, 11-4. Rohan Joshi, too, was in a similar situation against more fancied Sougata who led 2-0 and then 3-1. But the MP lad, after winning the third game, saw a glimmer of hope and never gave up reaping the rewards as he put pressure on his West Bengal opponent to win 7-11, 10-12, 11-5, 5-11, 11-3, 12-10, 11-8.
The match between Shubham Ojah of Rajasthan Omkar Torgalkar saw twists and turns after every game with the win-loss equation continuing until the sixth game. But in the decider, Omkar outplayed Shubham to take his pre-quarterfinal slot.
Left-handed Manush was in the zone. Leading comfortably, the Gujarat boy produced brilliant strokes and even the attacking Arjun found it difficult to cope with them. The West Bengal paddler did come back, taking the fourth and fifth games, but it was Manush who had the last laugh.
RESULTS (Round of 64):
Men: A. Amalraj bt Sai Tejas (Telg) 4-0, Vishvakarma Pankaj bt Hazariko Aliko (Asm) 4-0, Sudhanshu Grover bt Anukram Jain (Raj) 4-0, Rohit Chakraborty bt Soumyadeep Ghosh (WB) 4-1, Rohan Joshi bt Sougata Sarkar (WB) 4-3, Jeet Chandra bt Akash Nath (NB) 4-2, Omkar Torgalkar bt Subham Ojha (Raj) 4-3, Harmeet Desai bt Kiranjoy Pushilal (WB) 4-0, Raj Mondal bt Shankat Barua (Asm) 4-0, Subhash Mani bt Abhimanyu Mitra (WB) 4-3, Utkarsh Gupta bt Shubam Basak (Rlys) 4-3, Sourav Saha bt Shreyal Telang (Kar) 4-1, Sushmit Sriram bt Surajit Das (ESIC) 4-1, Ronit Bhanja bt E. Prabhakaran (Rlys) 4-1, Birdie Boro bt Anandh Raj Rajan (TN) 4-2, Manav Thakkar bt Souvik Banerjee (WB) 4-0, G. Sathiyan bt Nikhil Suresh (TN) 4-0, Parth Virmani bt Abu Rizwan (Raj) 4-1, Jubin Kumar bt Diwaksh Dawar (Chd) 4-0, Anirban Ghosh bt Jignesh Jaiswal (Guj) 4-0, Soumyajit Ghosh bt Mohammad Ali (Telg) 4-0, Payas Jain bt Vivek Bhargava (Raj) 4-2, Siddesh Pandey bt Souvik Kar (Rlys) 4-2, Sanil Shetty bt Ranjit Benny (Ker) 4-0, Subhajit Shaha bt Mohit Verma (Har) 4-1, Devesh Karia bt Shivaji Roy (Jkd) 4-0, Zubin Taraporewalla bt Ravindra Kotiyan (Rlys) 4-0, Anirban Nandi bt Sanmay Pranjpe (Del) 4-1, A. Sharath Kamal bt Shreyas Kulkarni (Kar) 4-1, Ravi Joshi bt V. Chandrachud (Telg) 4-2, Manush Shah bt Yashansh Malik (Del) 4-0, Arjun Ghosh bt Ahmed Saidul Alam (Asm) 4-1.
Women: Suthirta Mukherjee bt Reeth Risyna (TN) 4-1, Poulomi Ghatak bt Shruti Amrute (Mah) 4-2, Archana Kamath bt Sagarika Mukherjee (NB) 4-3, Prapti Sen bt Sreeja Akula (RBI) 4-3, Swastika Ghosh bt Mouma Das (PSPB) 4-2, Ayhika Mukherjree bt Frenaz Chipia (Guj) 4-0, Anindita Chakraborty bt Shreya Despande (Mah) 4-1, Madhurika Patkar bt Garima Goyal (Del) 4-0, Pooja Sahasrabudhe bt Deepika Neelakandan (TN) 4-0, Amrutha Pushpak bt Anusha Kutumbale (MP) 4-1, Mallika Bhandarkar bt Riti Shankar (Har) 4-1, Divya Deshpande bt Anushka Dutta (NB) 4-2, Ankita Das bt Selenadeepthi Selvakumar (TN) 4-0, Suhana Saini bt Priyadarshini Das (RBI) 4-3, Krittwika Sinha Roy bt Vanshika Bhargava (Del) 4-2, Manika Batra bt Nikhat Banu (RBI) 4-3.