Jubin Kumar stuns reigning champ Shetty at National TT

Haryana's Jubin Kumar sent reigning national table tennis champion and third seed Sanil Shetty packing in the men's singles pre-quarterfinals of the 76th Senior Nationals at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium here today.
Jubin won 7-11, 9-11, 8-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-9, 11-8.
No. 2 seed Devesh Karia of Gujarat, who had a wonderful outing this season, lost to qualifier Raj Mondal from West Bengal who beat him 4-1.
Earlier, another former national champion Anthony Amalraj bowed out in the second round of the main draw, losing to eighth seed Sushmit Srirarm, after comfortably leading 3-1. Sriram awon 11-9, 7-11, 7-11, 8-11, 11-9, 14-12, 11-8.

In women's pre-quarterfinals, all but fifth and sixth seeded paddlers went out of reckoning. Both No. 5 and No. 6 seeds, Mousumi Paul, who gave a scare to former national champion K. Shamini, lost 3-4 and No. 6 Madhurika Patkar went down to unseeded Nehal Aggarwal 3-4.
The quarterfinals in both sections will be played tonight with only the semifinals and finals slated for the morrow, the concluding day of the championships, along with the men and women's doubles finals.

Of all the upsets on the day, Shetty's must hurt the Petroleum player the most as he was not only having a smooth ride but was even expected to defend the title he won at Patna last year.

What befell on him, no one knows, including the attacking and stylish left-hander himself. But the credit must go to Jubin for his perseverance and change of game plan from the fourth game.
Woefully out of the match and down 0-3, the Haryana lad played a mesmerizing game-superbly working on the angles and catching Shetty on his somewhat weak forehand and often forcing him into errors. In fact, Shetty kept pushing Jubin away from the table and it worked well for him in the first three games. The match-point shot, a curving-in forehand exemplified Jubin's fantastic play.