In arguably the best match the tournament has seen so far, the pendulum swung both ways before AP held their nerves to pull off a thrilling win. In the semifinals, they will take on Services, who ended hosts Karnataka’s campaign with a 27-18 victory in the other quarterfinal.

Chattisgarh will take on defending champions Punjab in the other last four tie. While Chattisgarh defeated Tamil Nadu 39-24 in the first quarterfinal tie, Punjab was ‘supposed’ to have posted a 20-11 victory over Gujarat in a match which didn’t last the stipulated time.

Though Mohammad Anwar was the top-scorer for AP, it was the brilliance of goalkeeper MK Pasha that carried the day for the former champions. Pasha came out with a couple of brilliant saves to frustrate the Railways forwards.

In a match that went down the wire, AP led by the thinnest of margins at the halfway mark. The fact that neither team could get to a lead of more than two points shows how close the battle was. The plot went like ‘I score one, you score back’ with the scores reading 20-19, 27-26, 32-31, 34-33. With the score reading 34-34, it looked as though the match would go to the extra time, but left-handed Shiva Kumar, who excelled with his all-round game for AP, dealt a body blow for Railways by scoring two points in a jiffy and gave AP a 36-34 lead.

Though Railways reduced the deficit through Mohinder Singh, AP went ahead again through Shiva Kumar. Andhra scored two more goals to make it 38-35. Railways succeeded in scoring only one more as they found Pasha a tough nut to crack. Once the long whistle went, the AP camp was over the moon after having prevailed in a battle of nerves.

In contrast, the Chattisgarh-Tamil Nadu match was a totally one-sided affair with Chattisgarh racing to a 9-0 lead from where they never looked back. Firoz Khan and Syed Zafar did the bulk of the scoring for Chattisgarh by scoring eight goals apiece.

Results: Quarterfinals: AP: 38 (Mohd Anwar 11, K Venkatesh 10) bt Railways: 36 (M Singh 10, AK Yadav 5). HT: 18-17; Chattisgarh: 39 (Firoz Khan 8, Syed Zafar 8) bt Tamil Nadu: 24 (Lalit 10, Namit 5). HT: HT: 23-8; Punjab: 20 (Kulwinder Singh 5, Sanjay Singh 5) bt Gujarat: 11 (Shivnarayan 5, Sachin 5). HT: 16-9; Services: 27 (Murthy 5, Pawan Kumar 5) bt Karnataka: 18 (Premnath 9, Lisho Augustine 3). HT: 13-7.

League stage: Group A: Haryana w/o Pondichery; Chandigarh w/o Goa; Pondichery: 29 bt Bihar: 22.
Group B: AP: 30 bt Rajasthan: 14; AP: 45 bt AIU: 30; Gujarat: 32 bt Kerala: 30. HT: 15-13; AIU w/o Rajasthan; Gujarat: 30 bt AIU: 5.

Group C: Uttaranchal: 31 bt Jharkhand: 28; Jharkhand: 14 drew with UP: 14; UP: 23 bt West Bengal: 10; Maharashtra: 34 bt West Bengal: 29.

Group D: NHA: 20 bt Orissa: 8; Orissa w/o HP.