Chhajed overcomes Tamhankar challenge

Top seed Manasi Chhajed overcame a tough challenge from Priyanka Tamhankar in the Youth girl’s quarterfinal clash at the Mate Real District Ranking table tennis tournament,with the latter putting up a strong fight.

Chhajed prevailed over the feisty Tamhankar by an 11-5,5-11,11-3,11-9,9-11,11-6 scoreline. Ujwala Gaikwad,the number two seed,defeated Aarohi Chhajed 11-9,8-11,11-9,7-11,11-3,11-9 to book a semifinal berth. Sayali Deshpande and Eesha Joshi,seeded third and fourth,respectively,also made their way into the last four. Deshpande defeated Vedika Bhende 9-11,5-11,11-7,11-5,4-11,11-6,11-4 in an engrossing match while Joshi downed Neharika Jatar 14-12,11-4,11-8,11-4.

In the veterans’ singles,first round clashes,Vijay Madage beat Sudhakar Dharane while Manisha Bodas got the better of Arvind Jain. Mangesh Paradkar defeated Atul Thombare while Rajan Gokhale found his way past Vinayak Jadhav. Sunil Shah and VM Urankar also recorded victories.

In the sub-junior boys’ second round encounters,Arjun Mahajan beat Shourya Barkund 12-10,11-6,8-11,7-11,11-4 while Samyak Parmar beat Manas Gadgil 3-11,11-3,11-6,7-11,11-7. Mihir Thombre,Chaitanya Mihirpagare,Rajat Kadam,Sawan Pimpalkhare,Mihir Danke and Karan Kukreja also won their respective matches and progressed to the third round.