Falcons take narrow lead against Smashers in UTT

Marcos Freitas was in fine fettle for Dabang Smashers TTC, winning two rubbers in the match against Falcons TTC on day four of Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) at Nehru Indoor Stadium, here today.
At the end of five matches, Falcons took a narrow 8-7 lead as Lee Ho Ching rallied after losing the first game to pip Tetyana Bilenko 8-11 11-9 11-5.
Despite Freiatas' two victories, Falcons fought back through Wu Yang and the mixed doubles pair of Sanil Shetty and Lee Ho Ching to be on even keel with Smashers at the end of four matches.
Portugal paddler Freitas, ranked 14 in the world, got his team off to a flying start by outplaying young Indian Sanil Shetty 11-5 11-2 11-3.

In the second match, Wu Yang, who was once ranked as high as fourth in the world, underlined her class, with a dominant 11-9 11-4 11-7 win over India's Mousumi Paul to level the scores for Falcons.
Sanil and Lee Ho Ching continued the good work for Falcons by posting a 11-8 11-6 11-6 victoy to put the team 6-3 ahead.

However, Freitas was in his element again as he romped to 11-7 11-6 11-8 win against the experienced Gerell.
According to the championship's points system, in each game, whichever individual/pair scores 11 points first shall be declared the winner and his team shall receive one team point. Each tie will have nine matches and each match will have three games, so each tie will have 27 games.

The winner of a tie shall be decided by total games, that is total points won, meaning a team that wins 14 or more games of the 27 games shall be declared the winner of that tie.