Seeded Mihir, Shyala brush aside challenge to march ahead

The interesting matches, however, were in the boys under-17 category, where two 13-year-olds stole the limelight. One of them, however, ended on the losing side. Karanpal Sethi took Jaikaran Juneja the distance, while Calcutta’s Saurav Ghosal defeated Deepak Yadav, from Jindal, also in five sets. The interesting fact is that both Karanpal and Saurav narrowly missed out narrowly playing in the under-13 age group, where they would have surely been seeded one and two. Karanpal turns 13 on August 19, the last day of the tournament, while Saurav turned 13 on August 10. Karanpal and Saurav are the No 1 and 2 under-12National champions.

Thirteen-year-old Ghosal, a student of Laxmipat Singhania Academy, Calcutta, lost the first game 2-9 but kept hustling Yadav, who enjoyed a height advantage of nearly a foot over the 4’8" Ghosal.

Yadav, frustrated at missing his kills and drops kept making unforced errors and lost the next 9-2. Ghosal was cutting off the ball off very fast and volleying well, giving Yadav very little time to come back to the T. After losing the third game 6-9 Ghosal seemed tired, but suddenly found his second wind and kept going. He got the first few points in the fourth which gave him a psychological boost to win 9-4. In the fifth. Ghosal jumped to a 7-1 lead and though Deepak fought back well, he had wasted a lot of energy by then and Ghosal managed to scramble through at 9-7.

The other five-setter saw Jaikaran get the better of Karanpal. Jaikaran, having taken a break for about three months due to his studies, confessed he was unfit. Having finished third in the under-16 Nationals in October,Jaikaran should have gone through with ease, but was taken by surprise. He allowed Karanpal take the first game 7-9. He then took the next 9-1 and leading 8-1 in third, once again slipped up, allowing Karanpal win 8-10, before getting his act together to win 9-1, 9-4.

The results (seedings in prefix)

BOYS (Under-19): Mahesh V bt Taran M 9-4, 9-4, 9-5; 4-Mihir Kapoor bt R Lall 9-1, 9-0, 9-0; Junaid Nathani bt Deepali Anvekar 9-5, 9-4, 9-3; Neerav Tomar bt Jaikaran Juneja 9-2, 9-0, 9-5; Aftab Mathur bt Vishal Kapoor 9-4, 10-8, 9-6.

Under-17: Sanjay Pawar bt Shahid 9-2, 4-9, 9-2, 9-3; Aditya Manjrekar bt Rahil Shah 9-4, 9-6, 9-8; Gaurav Nandrajog bt S Apoo 9-1, 9-0, 9-0; Saurav Ghosal bt Deepak Yadav 2-9, 9-2, 6-9, 9-4, 9-7; Anurag Gill bt Vikram Apte 9-3, 9-4, 9-1; Yogin Thakur w/o V Bhagat; Jaikaran Juneja bt Karanpal Sethi 7-9, 9-1, 8-10, 9-1, 9-4; Supreet Singh bt A Singh 9-6, 9-4, 10-8.

Under-15: Aditya Manjrekar bt Kabir Kapoor 9-6, 9-6, 9-5; Siddharth Samantaray btShahid Lokhandwala 9-1, 9-3, 9-0; Varun Bhagat bt S Aatha 9-1, 9-1, 9-5; Ritesh Sharma bt Gautam Kalani 9-4, 9-0, 9-3; Rahil Shah bt S Apoo 9-1, 9-0, 9-3; Yogin Thakur bt Satin Gurnani 9-0, 9-2, 9-0.

Under-13: N Ranjani bt Vrashank Yadav 3-9, 9-0, 9-6, 9-7; Shawn Khambatta bt Arjun Bhatti 9-0, 9-1, 9-0; Sandip Jhangra bt A Klayanpur 9-0, 9-0, 9-0; Jatin Gurnani bt Aditya Shastri 9-7, 9-4, 9-3; M Mathur bt S Aibara 9-1, 9-1, 9-6.

Under-11: Vir Seth bt Shailee Shalke 9-1 9-1, 9-2; Varun Dattani bt Rikhil P 9-0, 9-0, 9-0; Sandip Jhangra bt Pratik Manjrekar 9-0, 9-0, 9-2; V Malhota w/o A Bhatti.

GIRLS (Under-19): Rachna Vora bt Leiama Deboo 9-2, 9-1, 9-4; Priyanka Yadav bt Anita Dhalla 9-1, 9-0, 9-2; Supriya Balsekar bt Shyla Pandole 9-4, 9-0, 9-1.

Under-15: Natasha Lall bt Nikita Emanuel 9-3, 9-1, 9-1; Shyla Pandole bt A Kalyanpur 9-0, 9-0, 9-0; Leiama Deboo bt Shailee Shalke 9-3, 9-5, 9-4.