Kolkata: Bengal youngsters fell short of a podium finish, but left a mark at the 86th Senior National Table Tennis Championships that concluded in Surat on Sunday. Both Ankur Bhattacharjee, representing PSPB, and Syndrela Das went down fighting in the semifinals of the men's and women's singles categories respectively.
Defending women's singles champion eighth seeded Poymantee Baishya, also from Bengal, was shown the door by her statemate Nandini Saha who staged a great comeback to defeat the Railway player 3-2 (6-11, 11-8, 3-11, 12-10, 11-6) in the Round of 64.
Poymantee, however, did not return empty-handed as she teamed up with Akash Pal to bag gold in the mixed doubles category beating Jash Modi and Taneesha Kotecha of Maharashtra 3-0 (11-5, 11-6, 11-4). She also won the gold in women's team event for RSPB.
The Bengal duo of Sourav Saha and Aniket Sen Choudhary claimed silver in men's doubles losing the summit clash to Tamil Nadu's PB Abhinandh and S Preyesh Raj 1-3 (10-12, 11-4, 6-11, 7-11)
Playing her second senior nationals, qualifier Syndrela was a revelation as she stunned Krittwika Sinha Roy 4-3 (10-12, 5-11, 11-7, 9-11, 12-10, 11-8, 11-5) in the quarterfinal. The 15-year-old girl down 1-3 against Krittwika, who shifted base to Gujarat after her marriage to India international player Harmeet Desai, showed nerves of steel at a time when she had to win the next three games. She won the fifth one narrowly 12-10 and followed that up with 11-8, 11-5 wins in the next two to progress. She could not maintain the momentum against RBI's Diya Chitale in the last-four clash losing 0-4 (8-11, 8-11, 5-11, 6-11).
Rising star Ankur Bhattacharjee displayed some great qualities before falling to Manush Shah, also of RBI. Both Diya and Manush went on to claim the individual titles.
Ankur, who won a hat-trick of U-19 titles, was up against some explosive forehand and backhand shots of Manush, a left-hander player from Baroda. The 18-year-old, however, kept fighting before going down 0-4 (11-13, 4-11, 9-11, 10-12). Ankur teamed up with Sharath Kamal, Manav Thakkar, Harmeet Desai and G Sathiyan to bag gold for PSPB in men's team event.