Manav Sthali boys top group

NEW DELHI, January 1: Manav Sthali School (Rajinder Nagar), keeping their top billing and form in tact, routed Pitts Modern School (Bihar...

NEW DELHI, January 1: Manav Sthali School (Rajinder Nagar), keeping their top billing and form in tact, routed Pitts Modern School (Bihar) 3-0 to top group C and qualified for the knock-out round in the second National Table Tennis Tournament, organised by the school under the aegis of Central Board of Secondary Education here today.

Represented by Amit Jain, Ansh Adhlakha and Aditya Puri, the school team started on a high note as they kept demolishing the opponents from Bihar without having to sweat it out much.

In fact, Amit started the rout with a straight game victory over rival Ratnesh and took the games rather easily at 21-4, 21-10. Amit served and collected points with utmost ease that Ratnesh was left struggling, particularly in the first game. He, however, came back strongly in the second but could manage only 10 points.

In the second match, Adhlakha was stretched a bit by Sanjeet from the Bihar school as the latter capitalised on the former’s mistakes. It allowed Sanjeet to put up a good fight as he picked 14 points in the first bfore Adhlakha taking the game at 21-14. But in the second Sanjeet made several unforced errorts which only helped the cause of Adhlakha, who wrapped it conceding 11 points.

With the match already decided, things became rather easy for Aditya Puri in the final game as he wrapped it for an identitcal score of 21-8, 21-8.

In the match between Vasant Kunj and Vijayawada teams, things could have gone either way with both taking the fight to the rival camps. Though Nitin Mahajan won 21-17, 21-11 against Chander Shankar, teammate Sandeep struggled a bit before subduing Pranay to give the advantage to Bhatnagar school. But in the third Rajiv lost his first game to Shyam 13-21 and came back well in the second and third to wrap it for a clean sweep. This win enabled the Bhatnagar school top their group.