Junior paddlers leave on twin-tours of Croatia, Serbia

A 20-member Indian squad, comprising Junior and Sub-Junior boys and girls, who are competing in the ongoing South Zone National Ranking Table Tennis Championships here, will be leaving for Varazdin tonight to participate in the Croatia and Serbia Open Junior Circuit events.

The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Premium Croatia Junior and Cadet Open will be held at Varazdin from September 12-16.

Soon after, the team members would leave for the Premium World Junior Circuit Serbia Junior and Cadet Open, beginning at Belgrade on September 19.

On the twin-tours, the players will be accompanied by four coaches at Delhi before flying out to Varazdin past midnight.

The exposure trips, which are part of the TTFI programme as approved under Sports Authority of India's ACTC, will come in handy for the juniors as "some of them are first-timers" to compete among the best and and showcase their talent.

Additionally, these premium events also enable the players to log international points to soar up their rankings. The players will be competing both in team and individual events.

Squads:

Junior Boys: Manush Shah, Raegan Albuquerque, Anukram Jain, Deepit R. Patil, Akash Pal and Yashansh Malik.

Junior Girls: Anushka Kutumbale, Swastika Ghosh, Prapti Sen, Poymantee Baisya, Radhapriya Goel and Diya Chitale.

Sub-Junior Boys: Payas Jain, Vishwa Deenadayalan, Aadarsh Om Chetri and Divyansh Srivastava.

Sub-Junior Girls: Anargaya Manjunath, Lakshita Narang, Karruna Gajendran and Kavyashree Baskar.

Coaches: Mohammad Ibrahim Khan, Krunal Telang, Subhajit Saha and Jyoti Shah.

--IANS

dm/kk/sed