New Delhi: Ayhika Mukherjee defeated Leila Imre of Hungary to win the junior girls crown at the 2014 Slovak Open IIT Junior Circuit table tennis championships at Senec on Sunday night.

Ayhika won the crucial final battle 4-2 (11-6, 9-11, 11-4, 6-11, 13-11, 11-6) in 40 minutes to make it a memorable trip to the Slovakian city. She and other paddlers will now travel to Poland for the Polish Junior and Cadet Open table tennis championships, starting tomorrow.

Ayhika made a great opening winning the two of first three games rather easily against Imre despite losing the second with the minimum points. The Hungarian was struggling to come to terms with Ayhika all the time attacking and pushing her rival to the corner. Yet, she was able to pull one back in the fourth very convincingly at 11-6. But that was all she could do as the Indian took the next after being stretched before shutting the shop close in the sixth.

In the semifinals, Ayhika had downed Uruguayan Maria Lorenzotti 11-9, 11-2, 11-6, 9-11, 11-5 to earn the final meeting with Imre.

Earlier, Abhishek Yadav, however, could not proceed beyond the round of 16 as he lost to Stanislav Kucera from Czech Republic 2-4 after putting up a good fight. The Indian lost 11-1, 12-10, 8-11, 5-11, 7-11, 9-11. The Indian left-hander had beaten Serbia’s Marko Popovic 4-1 (4-11,5-11,7-11,11-5,8-11) on in the morning session on Saturday.