Mixed doubles action lights up AAI table tennis championships in Indore
The mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals at the AAI 52nd Institutional Table Tennis Championships in Indore saw PSPB, RBI, Railways and Tamil Nadu pairs advance. Matches featured thrillers, straight-game wins and deciders, underlining the competitive depth at Abhay Prashal
Hyderabad: The mixed doubles competition at the AAI 52nd Institutional Table Tennis Championships delivered a gripping day of action at Abhay Prashal, with the pre-quarterfinals producing a blend of authority, endurance and late-match nerve as the quarterfinal lineup took shape in Indore on Saturday.
Most of the top combinations lived up to their billing, negotiating demanding schedules that saw many players doubling up across singles and doubles. PSPB’s top-seeded pair Payas Jain and Syndrela Das set the tone with a crisp straight-games win.
Their teammates and third seeds Divyansh Srivastava and Swastika Ghosh were equally assured, cruising past their West Bengal opponents without dropping a game. Second seeds Harmeet Desai and Yashaswini Ghorpade, however, were forced to dig deep after conceding the opening game before reasserting control in four tightly contested games.
Several encounters turned into stern physical and mental tests. The RBI pairing of Asif Haque and Harsha Vardini produced one of the day’s standout performances, ousting the fifth-seeded IA&AD duo of H Jeho and Anjali Rohilla in a five-game thriller marked by rapid momentum shifts and sustained rallies. Tamil Nadu’s Senthil Kumar and Ananya Muralidharan also went the distance, eventually prevailing 3-2 and 11-5 in the decider after trading blows across five fluctuating games.
Railways Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) enjoyed a productive outing, with Anirban Ghosh and Anusha Kutumbale surviving a pressure-laden four-game battle that featured two deuce games, while Preyesh Raj and Sampada Bhiwandkar showed composure in the closing stages of a five-game contest to turn the match in their favour. Akash Pal and Poymantee Baisya, meanwhile, stamped their authority with a commanding straight-games victory over an experienced RBI combination.
There was little margin for error elsewhere. IA&AD’s Karthik Solaiyan and Yashini Sivasankar held their nerve after being dragged into a decider, while West Bengal’s Ankur Bhattacharjee and Sataporni De wrapped up their match efficiently despite persistent resistance. Wins for pairs from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal further underlined the competitive depth on display.
