Sathiyan, Mouma top seeds in Senior National TT championship

Petroleum Sports Promotion Board's G. Sathiyan and WestBengal's Mouma Das have got the pride of place in the men's and women's singles seeding list respectively Thursday for the 76th Senior National Table Tennis championship here.

Gujarat's Devesh Karia is the second seed in the men's category, a rung above reigning national champion Sanil Shetty.

With two domestic back-to-back titles against his name, Sathiyan has 360 points to lead the ranking list and bag the top-seeding for the senior nationalsAat the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium.

Close on his heels was Devesh Karia, who beat Sathiyan at Indore's Central Zone event and Abhishek Yadav at Agra in the North Zone championships, with 225 points.

Shetty, who had a moderate domestic season, has still managed to log 165 points to keep the No. 3 position in the seeding list, while Lalrin Puia of Mizoram was just behind him at No. 4 with 10 points less.

Rajasthan's Yadav, with his reasonable outing this season and with a runner-up position in at Agra, was seeded fifth.

At the end of the group engagements, 59 paddlers have qualified for the main draw which will be of 64 players and six of the group qualifiers will play another qualifying round to make the main draw cut.

In the women's section, thirty-two-year-old Mouma Das has earned herself the top-seed position well ahead of the young lot, including national title holder Ankita Das, who has been pushed to th seventh spot, following her inconsistent performance this season.

In fact, Maharashtra's Pooja Sahasrabudhe is seeded number two and former national champion Poulami Ghatak number three. Manika Batra, who had a mixed bag of a season, has managed to be the fourth seed.