Sanil Shetty and Manika Batra of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board moved into the mixed doubles final of the All India Inter-Institutional table tennis tournament, defeating Food Corporation of India’s Arjun Ghosh and Sagarika Mukherjee 11-5, 12-10, 13-11 here on Friday.
The final on Saturday will be an all-PSPB affair after Jubin Kumar and Neha Aggarwal defeated Air India's Chinmay Datar and Devika Bhide 11-9, 11-4, 8-11, 8-11, 11-8.
The women's doubles pre-quarterfinals largely went on expected lines.
The only surprise was the defeat of Air India's Mallika Bhandarkar and Vedika Garg to FCI's Sagarika Mukherjee and Charvi Kawle in straight games 8-11, 8-11, 9-11.
The pair will meet PSPB's Mouma Das and K Shamini in the quarterfinals after they powered past Shruti Talnikar and Kakoli Lahkar.
In other matches, AAI’s Maria Rony and Seraha Jacob beat IA&AD’s Pooja Sharma and Kumaravel 3-0, RSPB’s Anindita Chakraborty and Pallabi Kundu combined to down CRSB’s Vidya Narasimhan and Praneetha Challa 3-0, PSPB’s Reeth Rishya and Senhora D’Souza beat FCI’s Nadia Saini and Garima Goyal 3-0.
Also, AAI’s Nikhat Banu and Frenaz Chipa accounted for Air India’s second pair, Shruti Amrute and Devika Bhide 3-0, RSPB’s Takeme Sarkar and Rupsa Bhattacharya overcame IA&AD’s Sayantika Kundu and Sanya Sehgal 3-1.
Sathiyan top seed
Reigning National champion Soumyajit Ghosh has been seeded second in the men's singles event, behind G Sathiyan. Incidentally, Sathiyan had prevailed over Ghosh during the last year's final.
In the women's singles draw, National champion Mouma Das has been given the top seeding. Last year's runner-up Pooja Sahasrabuddhe has been seeded second and Ankita Das third.
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