Manav Thakkar, Yashaswini Ghorpade win National Ranking Table Tennis Championships

Hyderabad: Manav Thakkar and Yashaswini Ghorpade won the men’s and women’s singles titles at the UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships in Kangra on Wednesday. This is the first national ranking tournament for the season.

The win gives Manav and Yashaswini the top spot in domestic rankings.

Manav, seeded second, beat Harmeet Desai, the top seed, 4-2 (9-11, 11-3, 11-4, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9) in the final while Yashaswini beat Reeth Rishya 4-1 (12-10, 11-5, 11-4, 4-11, 12-10) in the final.

The title for Yashaswini was her first in the women’s singles category. She had won many tournaments in the age-group category and was a force to reckon with.

Manav started on the backfoot with Harmeet winning the first game but the second-seeded Manav showcased his skill and determination to take a commanding 3-1 lead. Harmeet soon won the next game, fighting back to narrow the margin and nearly levelling the score but at 10-9 in the sixth game, it was Manav who kept his nerve to win the match point and championship point and deny any fairytale for Harmeet.

In the men's semifinals, top-seed Harmeet Desai asserted his dominance over Manush Shah triumphing 4-0.

Manav beat Delhi’s Payas Jain 4-1 in another semifinal.

In the women’s singles semifinals, Reeth Rishya got the better of Sayali Wani from Maharashtra 4-3 while Yashaswini beat Tamil Nadu’s Selena Deepthi 4-1.

In the Youth Boys U-19 singles final, Ankur Bhattacharjee of PSPB won the title with a 4-0 victory over P.B. Abhinand of Tamil Nadu while in the Youth Girls U-19 final, Taneesha Kotecha triumphed in an all-Maharashtra showdown against Sayali Wani 4-0.