Bengal scored a fantastic treble in the 3rd 11Sports Inter-School Table Tennis National Championships 2017 here on Saturday evening, clinching the Senior Boys, Senior Girls and Junior Girls team titles.
Pallabi Roy & Sataporni De of GD Goenka Public School, North Bengal winners of the 3rd 11Sports Inter-School Table Tennis National Championships 2017.
Sri Kumaran Children’s School (Karnataka) was the only team to buck the trend, taking the Junior Boys’ gold medal for the second consecutive year.
Techo India Group Public School (North Bengal),
GD Goenka Public School (North Bengal) and Narayana School (West Bengal) proved to be unstoppable, taking all three Tamil Nadu teams in their stride.
Techno India began the rout, taming Maharishi Vidya Mandir (Tamil Nadu) 3-0 in the Senior Boys’ team title. Soumyadeep Sarkar was their star, winning his singles’ contest against S. Karthikeyan 3-0 (11-9, 11-6, 11-8) and pairing up with Abhirup Paul Roy to overcome Karthikeyan & AP Roopan 3-1 (11-6, 11-6, 6-11, 11-2).
Earlier, Mainak Das whipped Roopan Santhoesh 3-0 (11-6,11-7,11-6) to tilt his side towards an emphatic victory.
GD Goenka Public School pipped SBOA School and Junior College to claim the title in the Senior Girls’ category.
Sataporni De had her hands full as she took on M Yazhini in the opening encounter. She lost the first and third games before recovering to win 3-2 (7-11, 11-8, 4-11, 11-8, 11-7).
Pallabi Roy too had to ward off an attacking V Vaishnavi to prevail 3-1 (7-11, 11-6, 11-7, 11-7). They lost the doubles too, with Sataporni & Pallabi unable to contain V Vaishnavi & M. Yazhini 0-3 (5-11, 8-11, 11-13).
But a determined Sataporni squashed Vaishnavi 3-1 (11-4, 9-11, 11-5, 11-6) to ensure that they picked up the title.
Narayana School too had to dig deep to quell PS Senior Secondary School (Tamil Nadu) 3-2. They lost their opening encounter, with Nilishma Sarkar easily going down to S Hrithika 0-3 (6-11, 10-11, 3-11); Sneha Bhowmick, however, whipped M Hansini 3-0 (11-4, 11-4, 11-3) to make it 1-1.
Nilishma & Sneha then lost to M Hansini & S Hrithika 1-3 (15-13, 7-11, 12-14, 8-11) to open the contest up. But Sneha and Nilishma won the reverse singles 3-1 to make it a grand day for Bengal.
Earlier, Lakshya Biyani of Madhya Pradesh made it to the main round of the Junior Girls’ singles in a dramatic way.
All three girls (Lakshya, Samaira Sharma and Rai Sardesai) in Group 17 found themselves in a unique triple tie situation, with each winning one match each and in exactly the same manner: 3-0.
More intriguingly, each of them not only won the same number of points but also lost exactly the same number of points to make it a tricky situation for the organisers.
In the end, a draw of lots had to be resorted to, and Lakshya proved to be the lucky girl.
Team Finals Results:
Senior Boys:
Techo India Group Public School, North Bengal Bt Maharishi Vidya Mandir Sr Sec School, Tamil Nadu 3-0
Senior Girls:
GD Goenka Public School, North Bengal bt SBOA School and Junior College, Tamil nadu 3-1
Junior Girls:
Narayana School West Bengal bt P.S. Senior Secondary School, Tamil Nadu 3-2
Junior Boys:
Sri Kumaran Children’s School (Karnataka) bt Naihati Narendra Vidyaniketan (West Bengal) 3-2