Raman's absence forces change in seedings

By Our Special Correspondent

KOLKATA, JULY 30. Third seeded southpaw S. Raman of Petroleum Sports Control Board (PSCB) has pulled out of the National ranking (East) table tennis championship owing to bereavement in his family.

The former National champion's absence necessitated a few changes in the men's singles seedings with Ranabir Das of Railways taking his place. Sourav Chakraborty, one of the most exciting prospect to emerge from Bengal, has been seeded fifth. National runner-up Chetan P. Baboor of PSCB, previously seeded sixth and in the half of the top seed Soumyadeep Roy of PSCB, has now been seeded seventh and shifted to the bottom half where he should have no problem to make it to the final.

Bhusan Thakur of Railways is now seed No. 6 while Arjun Dutta of Railways comes in as seed No. 8. Subhajit Saha of PSCB is seeded second while Shibaji Dutta of PSCB is seeded fourth. Significantly, former National champion Arup Basak of PSCB returns to competition after serving TTFI imposed six month ban for indiscipline.

In the ladies' side, N.R. Indu of PSCB is the top seed while National champion Poulami Ghatak also of PSCB is the seed No. 2. National runner-up M.S. Mythili of PSCB is seeded fourth behind third seed teammate Mouma Das. After fifth seed Anindita Chakraborty of Railways and Mantu Ghosh of PSCB in the sixth place, Mallika Parekh of Railways occupies the seventh place followed by Bengal's Kasturi Chakraborty.

After the qualifying matches, Deepali Zaveri of Maharashtra, Madhumita Chowdhury of Bengal, Mamta Prabhu of Maharashtra and Avanti Sinha of Bengal made it to the main draw.

Arunava Ganguly of PSCB Academy and Niloy Basak of Bengal are seeded one and two in the boys's singles main draw and are expected to play the final. After the qualifying rounds, four Bengal players, Soumya Nandi, Joydip Das, Abhijit Pal and Pintu Das made it to the main round.

Susmita Roy and Moushumi Paul are the two top seeds in the girls' singles event with S. Sangeetha of Tamil Nadu and Madhurika Pathkar of Maharashtra occupying the third and fourth seed positions. K. Samini of Tamil Nadu, Ahana Pal, Reshmi Basak and Ria Dasgupta, all from Bengal, made it to the main draw.

In the sub-junior boys' singles, the four qualifiers are from Bengal. Anirban Roy Chowdhury, Tuhin Sinha, Sayan pal Roy and Subham Kundu came through the qualifying rounds where Amarnath Das of Bengal is the top seed. Arpit Bhopalkar of PSCBA is the second seed.

Meanwhile, main round matches upto pre-quarterfinals were gone through in the sub-junior girls' section with top Salankara Mahalanabis of Bengal leading two other seeds into quarterfinals. The lone upset was that of fourth seed U.V. Agni of Tamil Nadu who lost to Triparna Biswas of Bengal in the pre- quarters at 12- 10, 6-11, 7-11, 6-11, 4-11.

The results: Sub-junior girls' singles pre- quarterfinals: (1) Salankara Mahalanabis (Ben) bt Sanjama Sarma (Asm) 11-7, 11-7, 11-9, 11-6; Neha Agarwal (Del) bt Arpita Banerjee (Ben) 11-7, 11- 2, 5-11, 7-11, 11-4, 7-11, 11-1; Sweta Modak (Ben) bt Nabanita Bose (Ben) 6-11, 8-11, 8-11, 20-18, 11-8, 11-8, 11-9; Triparna Biswas (Ben) bt (4) U.V.A Agni (TN) 10-12, 11-6, 11-7, 11-6, 11- 4; (3) Sukanya Bose (Ben) bt Soumi Mondal (Ben) 11-3, 11-8, 9-11, 11-7, 11-7; Sarmila Pal (Ben) bt S. Nirupama (TN) 7-11, 11-9, 11- 6, 11-6, 11-5; Sikha Sharma (Del) bt Sabana Parveen (Ben) 11-7, 10-12, 11-2, 11-4, 11-6; (2) Palavi Kundu (Ben) bt Susmita Paul (Ben) 11-4, 11-9, 9-11, 11-5, 11-4.

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