Even as teams, especially the top ones, went through the group qualification rounds on Day 1 of the 79th edition of the 11Even Sports Senior Nationals at the Mega Sports Complex at Khelgaon here, the topic of interests was the open draw for top 16 men seeds and top eight women seeds that was held with players involved in it.
With Anthony Amalraj, who have had a fantastic season in the domestic circuit and leading points table, and Suthirta Mukherjee, among women, getting the top positions on the seeding list, two paddlers—Soumyajit Ghosh and Mouma Das—with fewer points were considered for the last slots, based on their world rankings, much to the relief of the two big names. Mouma, though far behind eight top-ranked players, she was included as the eighth player for seeding purposes.
The luckiest happened to be Arjun Ghosh of West Bengal as he picked the right card to be seeded No. 2 and thus push both G. Sathiyan and Manav Thakkar—all in second position with same ranking points—behind him. Arjun, occupying the bottom of the draw of 128 players, he will have little difficulty in progressing at least up to the pre-quarterfinals.
However, the trickiest part stars at him when he runs into Achanta Sharath Kamal, seeded No. 15 in the same quarter.
There are other intriguing pre-quarterfinals in the offing are: Anothny Amalraj possibly meeting No. 16 seed Abhishek Yadav, who has troubled him in the past; 11th seed Soumyajit Ghosh taking on No. 6 Sanil Shetty, fifth seed Raj Mondal meeting No. 12 Sourav Saha, third seed Sathiyan clashing with Anirban Ghosh and Subhajit Saha (No. 7) running into No. 10 Anirban Nandi. World No. 2 Manav Thakkar and seeded No. 4 must be careful against big slayer Sushmit Sriram, seeded 13. The Tamil Nadu player is known to have the caliber to make things difficult for the best of players.
In the quarterfinals, reigning champion and No. 4 seed Madhurika Patkar looks like meeting fifth seed Mouma while third seeded Pooja could run into Divya Deshpade, seeded sixth. Manika, seeded second, will clash with seventh seed Ankita Das while the top seeded Suthirta will take on the RBI girl Akula Sreeja, who is seeded eighth.
TTFI has considered a special request from Tamil Nadu to allow their women team to compete from Day 2 because of the betrothal of one of the Tamil Nadu girls on Day 1 of the competition. This may be a departure in so many years of the conduct of any nationals, but this allowance was made because of the player’s importance to Tamil Nadu’s fortunes.
Drawn in group F along with Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal, Tamil Nadu will play all three group matches tomorrow while other teams in the group would have finished their engagements today itself, minus playing against Tamil Nadu.
This not only prevents the second stage open draw until Tamil Nadu complete their engagements tomorrow, but also keeps the other 14 qualifiers in some sort of lingering suspense.
RESULTS: (Team):
Men: (Round 1)
Group A: PSPb bt Punjab 3-0, Chhattisgarh bt Manipur 3-0;
Group B: Haryana bt Andhra Pradesh 3-0, Uttarakhand bt Pondicherry 3-0;
Group C: Gujarat bt Odisha 3-0, North Bengal bt Meghalaya 3-0;
Group D: West Bengal bt Kerala 3-0, Uttar Pradesh bt Chandigarh 3-0;
Group E: Rajasthan bt Mizoram 3-1, Maharashtra B bt Tripura 3-0;
Group F: Tamil Nadu bt Jharkhand 3-1, Karnataka bt Bihar 3-0;
Group G: Maharashtra A bt Assam 3-2, Telangana bt Himachal Pradesh 3-0;
Group H: Railways bt J and K 3-0, Delhi bt Madhya Pradesh 3-0;
Women: (Round 1)
Group A: West Bengal bt Bihar 3-0, Odisha bt (w/o) Meghalaya 3-0;
Group B: Maharashtra A bt Pondicherry 3-0, Delhi bt Mizoram 3-0;
Group C: PSPB bt Andhra Pradesh 3-0, Gujarat bt Goa 3-0;
Group D: RBI bt Punjab 3-0, Maharashtra B bt (w/o) J and K 3-0;
Group E: North Benal bt Kerala 3-0, Assam bt Chhattisgarh 3-0;
Group F: Rajasthan bt Himachal Pradesh 3-0,
Group G: Madhya Pradesh bt Chandigarh 3-0, Haryana bt Tripura 3-0;
Group H: Karnataka bt Jharkhand 3-0, Telangana bt Uttarakhand 3-0