Hyderabad: Sixth seed Harmeet Desai defeated fourth-seeded Manav Thakkar 4-3 in the men’s singles final to claim his maiden title at the 81st National Table Tennis Championships which ended here Sunday.
Haryana’s Sutirtha Mukherjee claimed her second national crown, beating PSPB’s Krittwika Sinha Roy, a three-time finalist, 4-0 in the women’s singles summit clash. In the process, Sutirtha bagged three gold medals from the event. She had won the team and the women’s doubles gold medal earlier apart from getting a silver medal in the mixed doubles event.
Harmeet, who had reached his first final in 2013, pocketed Rs. 2.5 lakh for his fantastic efforts, while Sutirtha who had won her first title at Ranchi in 2017, received Rs. 1.65 lakh in prize money.
Harmeet, who trains at Axton Centre in Germany, attributed his success to the training he has received there.
“Ever since I started training at the centre (in Germany) where I get to play with world’s top paddlers, I have improved in my blocks and shot selection,” said Harmeet.
“Manav I have been travelling together and when he engages you in long rallies, more often than not he wins. And the mistakes I made in the sixth game forced me rethink and I decided to keep my cool in the decider,” added Harmeet.
Haryana made their presence felt as their paddlers won both gold medals in men and women doubles before closely losing the third gold in mixed event.
After Jubin Kumar and Soumyajit Ghosh combined well to beat Gujarat’s Manush Shah and Ishaan Hingorani 3-1 in men doubles, it was the turn of Sutirtha and Riti Shankan to beat Bengal ‘A’ duo of Surbhi Patwari and Poymantee Baisya in women doubles.
Later, Sutirtha and Sourav Saha settled with the silver in a tough mixed doubles, losing 1-3 to the Bengal pair of Ronit Bhanja and Mousumi Paul.
Men’s singles: Harmeet Desai (PSPB) bt Manav Thakkar (PSPB) 11-4, 11-13, 14-12, 9-11, 11-8, 5-11, 11-5.
Women’s Singles: Sutirtha Mukherjee (Haryana) bt Krittwika Sinha Roy (PSPB) 11-4, 11-5, 11-8, 11-4.
PTI