After their dominating show in the individual events of the Jordan Junior and Cadet Open, Indian junior paddlers turned in yet another sterling display in the team events and clinched six medals – one gold, three silver and two bronze medals – late on Sunday.
In an all-India final of the junior girls’ category, India 2, comprising of Prapti Sen, Swastika Ghosh and Surbhi Patwari, prevailed over the India 1 team of Selena Selvakumar and Yashini Sivasankar 3-1 to annexe the gold.
Surbhi started the proceedings for India 2, beating the talented Selena 3-1 before Prapti made it 2-0 in her team’s favour with an identical 3-1 win over Yashini. India 1 pulled one back in the next match after the combination of Yashini and Selena beat the duo of Surbhi and Prapri 3-1. However, Prapti dashed India 1’s hope with a 3-1 win over Selana in the third singles encounter to seal the tie.
In the junior boys’ category, the India 1 team consisting of Jeet Chandra, Manush Shah and Snehit Suravajjula went down fighting to the formidable Chinese Taipei team 1-3 to return with a silver medal.
India lost its opening match with Snehit going down to Hsin-Yang Li 0-3, but Manush’s valiant fight earned him a 3-1 win over Ming-Wei Tai and brought his team back into the tie.
In the doubles clash, the Indian pair bounced back from the 0-2 deficit to level it at 2-2 but couldn’t take the lead as they lost the final game 8-11. Next, it was up to Manush to replicate his singles win but couldn’t handle the pressure to eventually lose it 1-3, which meant India 1 had to be content with the second place.
The India 2 squad, consisting of Ankuram Jain, Parth Virmani and Sarthak, who had qualified for the semi-finals, also lost to the eventual winners Chinese Taipei to finish their campaign with a bronze medal in the junior boys’ event.
In the cadet girls’ competition, the pair of Diya Chitale and Trisha Gogoi put up a valiant fight against the formidable Chinese team before going down with a narrow margin of 2-3 to win the silver.
Guining Wang and Sui Xiaoran won their respective matches against Diya Chitale (3-0) and Trisha (3-1) to give China a healthy 2-0 lead. But the Indians came back stronger to win their next two matches to take the tie into the decider.
Diya and Trisha won their doubles encounter 3-1 against Sui Xiaoran and Yulei Zhang, while Diya won her second singles of the night with a formidable 3-0 victory over Sui Xiaoran.
With the scores levelled, it was down to Trisha to steer India towards the finish line but she came up short against Guining Wang and lost 0-3 and the team finished off with a silver.
In the Cadet boys’ team category, Payas Jain and H Jeho, representing India 1, after their brilliant show against Sweden 3 and Iran 2 in their round of 16 and quarter-final clashes respectively, eventually lost 0-3 against Chinese Taipei in the semi-finals to bow out of the tournament with a bronze medal.
