JOIN USZubin Kumar of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board, winner of the national ranking championship (north zone), has been named the top seed after Sharat, India’s number one player, pulled out due to an injury suffered during training.
The absence of Sharath, who recently won back-to-back titles in Egypt and the United States, is a blow but the tournament still has quality players, N Ganeshan, technical delegate of the Table Tennis Federation of India, told a press conference on Tuesday.
“We have a very good field for the tournament. Except for Sharath, who was a late pull out, all the other top Indian players will be taking part. Sharath said he had met with his doctors and there might still be a small chance that he might play. If Sharath were to play, then the seeding will have to be changed,” said Ganeshan.
Like the men’s field, the women’s list is also dominated by PSPB with four of the top five seeds from the organisation including Madhurika Patkar, K Shamini and Poulami Ghatak.
Exciting action is in prospect in the youth boys’ event with G Sathiyan, Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet Desai fighting it out. The boys had reached the semifinals in the team event of the Asian Junior championships.
“They did our country proud and with the semifinal finish, they have qualified for the World Junior championships,” added Ganeshan.
Seedings: Men: Zubin Kumar (PSPB) 1; Soumyadeep Roy (PSPB) 2; Sourav Chakraborty (PSPB) 3; Amal Raj (PSPB) 4; Sanil Shetty (AI).
Boys, youth: Soumyajit Chosh (AAI) 1; G Sathiyan (TN) 2; Raj Mondal (AAI) 3; Harmeet Desai 4; Satheeswaran L (TN) 5.
Junior: Abhishek Yadav (PSPB A) 1; Avik Das (NB) 2; Sudarshan Grover (PSPB A) 3; Vivek Bhargava (PSPB A) 4; Shubankar Renvikar (Mah) 5.
Sub-junior: Utkarsh Gupta (Del) 1; Raja Kundu (PSPB A) 2; Anirudh M (TN) 3; Suvendu Shaw (PSPB A) 4; Shubhankar Saha (NB) 5.
Women: Madhurika Patkar (PSPB) 1; Shamini K (PSPB) 2; Divya Deshpande (AI) 3; Poulami Ghatak (PSPB) 4; Pooja Sahasrabhude (PSPB) 5.
Girls, youth: Pooja Sahasrabudhe (Mah) 1; Ankita Das (NB) 2; Divya Deshpande (AAI) 3; Mallika Bhandarkar (Mah) 4; Sneha V (TN) 5.
Junior: Mallika Bhandarkar (Mah) 1; Mankia Batra (Del) 2; S Narasimha Priya (TN) 3; Carmelia Sil (WB) 4; S Krithika (TN) 5.
Sub-junior: Anuksha Dutta (NB) 1; Priyadarshini Das (WB) 2; K Spoorthy (AP) 3; Maria Rony (Ker) 4; Sanika Divekar (Mah) 5.