Pondicherry: The flip of a coin decided that the winner of the last National Ranking Championships, Sanil Shetty got the top-seed position in the men’s singles seeding at the UTT National Ranking Championships (South Zone) at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium here today.
Manav Thakkar, until recently the leader on the points table, had finished runner-up in the last championships held at Dehradun, and Shetty joined him after his title-winning efforts. It forced a tie and the consequential toss. Eventually, Manav found himself pushed to the second spot.
In the women’s singles open seeding draw, Prapti Sen has been seeded No. 1 despite the Railways’ girl failing to go past her teammate Sutirtha Mukherjee in the quarterfinals. Though Sutirtha won the crown at Dehradun, finishing ahead of Reeth Rishya of PSPB, the latter is at No. 2 position. Of the three seeds on the list from the Railways, Takeme Sarkar and Sutirtha Mukherjee follow one another at No. 3 and No. 4, respectively.
Surprisingly, Swastika Ghosh and Diya Chitale, the winner and the runner-up of Youth Under-19 Girls last time, have skipped their main events to concentrate on the women’s singles only. Both figures are on the list of seeds, thanks to their consistency against the best.
In comparison, it’s a topsy-turvy seeding among the men. It may be due to the top-ranked 16 paddlers getting the privileges because of the edge seen in their competitions. But the best thing is that several juniors have grabbed the opportunity to challenge the citadel once held by the top eight.
Among the youngsters, Abhishek Yadava, Anirban Ghosh, Ronit Bhanja, and Arjun Ghosh have failed to carve out a niche for themselves despite their best efforts all these years. Yet, players like Payas Jain and Deepit Rajesh Patil have systematically eroded their bastion, making deep inroads with steady progress.
The group matches in the men’s singles and the women’s singles on Day 1 will get over later tonight as the paddlers will have to complete three rounds. Players in the men’s singles have been divided into 64 groups, each throwing up a winner that joins the 16 seeded players in the main draw. As for women’s singles, the winners of 40 groups will join the eight seeds. In both sections, the main draw matches begin tomorrow.
The Seeding List:
Men: Sanil Shetty, Manav Thakkar (both PSPB), Soumyajit Ghosh (Har), Sudhanshu Grover (Del), Anthony Amalraj (PSPB), Payas Jain (Del), Deepit Rajesh Patil (Mah), SFR Snehit (Telg), Manush Shah (Guj), Sougata Sarkar (LIC), Harmeet Desak (Guj), Abhishek Yadav (UP), Anirban Ghosh (RSPB), Sushmit Sriram (TTTA), Arjun Ghosh (RSPB), Ronit Bhanja (AAI).
Women: Prapti Sen (RSPB), Reeth Rishya (PSPB), Takeme Sarkar (RSPB), Sutirtha Mukherjee (RSPB), Anusha Kutumbale (MP), Diya Chitale (Mah), Akula Sreeja (RBI), Swastika Ghosh (AAI).
