Archana, Harsh in zone; PSPB pay the price

Archana Kamath Girish, all of 14 years, gave an interesting twist to the fortunes of her team as the Airports Authority of India (AAI) did the impossible in the Youth Girls section of the 45th All India International Table Tennis Championships at the Thyagraj Stadium here today.
Archana, doing a star turn for her team, outwitted title-favourites Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) 3-2 to take the top perch in the round-robin league format. The Cadet girl first beat the experienced Manika Batra 11-9 11-9 11-9 in the second singles and then accounted for another equally skilled Reeth Rishya 11-3 11-4 5-11 6-11 11-9 in what lifted an otherwise gloomy inaugural day of the championships.

Earlier, the promising Sreeja Akula did play her role with perfection to put AAI 1-0 up when the girl from Telangana downed Reeth Rishya 11-5 9-11 9-11 11-9 11-4 in the first singles to set the tone. Cashing in on, Archana blanked out Manika with minimum points to go ahead 2-0.
However, Senhora D'Souza brought some sanity when she beat AAI's weak-link Maria Rony 11-6 11-7 11-6. This restored the confidence in Manika who downed Sreeja 11-5 11-8 11-6 in their reverse singles for a 2-all score.
With the match going to the decider, it was left to both Archana and Reeth to come good for a turnaround. Archana, using her forehand to better effect, took a 2-0 lead only to surrender the advantage to Reeth who came back strongly with better serves and equally good returns.

In the last game, Archana was up to the task, leading 5-1 and then 8-5 with Reeth unable to pick her up, though she did manage a few more points before the Bengaluru girl shut her down.
Incidentally, both Archana and Sreeja were part of the Indian Cadet squad that participated in the Asian Juniors at Kuala Lumpur last week. The win today against PSPB has, more or less, decided the title in AAI's favour unless they goof it up in the remaining matches.
Similarly, there was another major upset in the Youth Boys section when PSPB went 2-3 down to Dena Bank, thanks to Harsh Sachanandani's never-say-die attitude. The player from Gujarat proved too hot for both Abhishek Yadav and Sudhanshu Grover - the two are products of PSPB Academy at Ajmer - as Harsh won his singles against the two in great style to push Dena Bank to the top of the chart and their maiden title.