Dharwad: The picturesque Dharwad, known as the Pensioners’ Paradise, will be luring for the next seven days a lot of young players to it when the city plays host to yet another major event—the LIC All India National Ranking Table Tennis Championships (South Zone)—in five years at the District Indoor Stadium, commencing here tomorrow.
Having conducted the All India Institutional Championships in 2013, the Dharwad District Association is all geared up to welcome paddlers from across the country, including reigning national champion Achanta Sharath Kamal, G. Sathiyan, the winner of Central Zone at Indore, A. Amalraj, the recent addition to the Arjuna Award list, Harmeet Desai and Sanil Shetty in the men section, while in the women category the who’s who of Indian table tennis will vie with each other to have a shot at the crown.
Soumyajit Ghosh, who is yet to play in a national ranking tournament this year—he participated in the Institutional meet in New Delhi—has chosen to skip the second one, too. But there are other seasoned paddlers like Sharath and the rest who have realised the significance of South Zone, the third domestic event on the TTFI calendar. So much so, there are over 800 players competing in 10 categories for the Rs. 6.70 lakh prize money which saw a 10 percent increase from the previous years.
More than the money, the ranking points carry a lot of weight when it comes to considering players for Team India duty in international tournaments abroad. With just 8 months to for the CWG in Gold Coast in Australia and the Asiad later in Indonesia, it is important for all players to get in right shape to have a look-in by the national selectors and be a part of the Team India scheme devised by TTFI with the help of foreign expert Massimo Costantini.
The players, who are now getting used to the open draw introduced for the first time at Indore, participated in it yesterday in which top 16 men and 8 women paddlers got an early wind of what to expect in the main draw. This novelty has done away with the suspense that prevailed before, thus making the contests sharp and focused.
With the top eight seeds already decided—Sharath is leading the chart in men singles while Pooja Sahasrabuddhe in women singles—the battle could get as fascinating as possible once the main draw begins. Despite Sathiyan winning the title at Indore, he is behind Sharath in seeding as the latter being an elite player has been accorded preference over the former. But for two women paddlers the South Zone could be a tricky affair Manika Batra and Mouma Das will have to begin from the scratch, having to play from the qualifiers.
However, the most unlucky among the two could be Manika Batra, the lone woman contender representing India at the forthcoming Asian Cup in Ahmedbad. During open draw, PSPB’s Archana Kamath and Poulami Ghatak edged out Manika in the toss as all the three with 55 points to each were joint seventh in the ranking. But Mouma, having missed both the Central Zone and the Institutional championships at Delhi, has no points this season. Perhaps, this will be first time in many years that Mouma has to play the qualifiers.
However, playing qualifiers is not a bad thing at all and who could vouch for it better than Sharath? With no ranking points in his kitty, the top-ranked Indian in the world had to do precisely that in last year’s South Zone at Vizag and it had done him a world of good. He went on to win the national ranking title in several years and followed it up with the national title at Manesar!
Apart from the star parade, the local flavour will keep the audience glued to their seats as they will look up to Archana Kamath, Kushi Viswanath and Anargaya Manjunath in the junior section while Sujan Bharadwaj and Akash in the sub-junior and Cadet sections to put up a grand show in front of the ‘home’ crowd.
For the championships here, STAG tables and flooring will be used while DHS balls will be in play on the first five days. STAG balls will be used for the sub-junior and cadet events only on the last two days. The event will see a deployment of 61 technical officials, including chief referee C.L. Thade, deputy referee Manjunath along with the services of veterans A.S. Kler, Henry under the leadership of competition manager G. Ganeshan.
LIC and Indian Oil Corporations, who have pitched in their might to the championships, are the main sponsors while United Commercial Bank will be the co-sponsors. Other institutions like Canara Bank, Dena Bank, SBI, AAI, Century Developers and TECHSER have also contributed in their own way to help conduct the championships.
