Manush Shah of Gujarat overcame Raegan Albuquerque of Maharashtra 4-3 to lift the youth boys trophy in the UTT National Ranking (South Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the Jimmy George Indoor Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday.
In the junior boys and junior girls finals, Vishwa Deenadayalan of Tamil Nadu and Anusha Kutumbale of Madhya Pradesh defeated Aadarsh Om Chetri of Delhi (4-2) and Munmun Kundu of West Bengal (4-1), respectively, to pick up their successive trophies.
In the semi-finals this morning, Manush beat another Maharashtra rival Mandar Hardikar without too much trouble (4-0) while Raegan got stretched by Haryana’s Jeet Chandra before he put it across for a hard-earned 4-1 victory.
In the Talent Identification Event (TIE), introduced in zonals for the first time for players above 13 and under-15 age groups, the contests in both boys and girls sections were limited to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka as they proved their superiority over their rivals from other southern states.
In the boys final, KJ Akash of Karnataka scored a come-from-behind victory to win the cup when he defeated Tamil Nadu’s Raghuram Prakasham 3-2, while Kavyashree Baskar of Tamil Nadu downed Shwetha Murittige of Karnatka 3-2 in the girls final.
Key results:
Junior boys final: Vishwa Deenadayalan (TN) bt Aadarsh Om Chetri (Del) 11-6, 6-11, 10-12, 11-8, 11-8, 11-6
Junior girls final: Anusha Kutumbale (MP) bt Munmun Kundu (WB) 11-6, 11-5, 4-11, 11-8, 11-6
Youth boys final: Manush Shah (Guj) bt Raegan Albuquerque (Mah) 7-11, 11-9, 3-11, 11-9, 6-11, 11-4, 11-4;
TIE boys final: K.J. Akash (Kar) bt Raghuram Prakasam (TN) 11-9, 8-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-2
TIE girls final: Kavyashree Baskar (TN) bt Shewetha Murittige (Kar) 11-7, 2-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-5