MUMBAI: Maharashtra’s table tennis players scored breakthrough victories in the East Zone National Ranking Tournament, with Siddesh Pande and Raegan Albuquerque striking gold in the Men’s Singles and Junior Boys’ Singles here in Guwahati.
Madurika Patkar too shone brightly, taking the silver medal in the Women’s Singles.
Unseeded Siddesh Pande proved to be a giant-killer, defeating Amalraj Anthony and former Junior World No. 1 Manav Thakkar en route to the title.
Siddesh began with a 4-0 triumph over Sivananda Seshadri of CRSB and a 4-2 win over Ronit Bhanja of Airports Authority of India (AAI). Up against PSPB’s Amalraj Anthony next, he showed great grit and character to post a 4-2 victory.
In the semifinals, he downed Arjun Ghosh while Manav Thakkar fell to his guile 3-4 in the finals.
Madurika Patkar had a tough start, scraping past West Bengal’s Premangi Ghosh 4-2. She trounced Oishwaryaa Deb 4-0 in her next match before RBI’s Amrutha Pushpak gave a stiff fight. She also accounted for West Bengal’s Surbhi Patwari and PSPB’s Reeth Rishya to enter the title round.
But Suthirta Mukherjee of West Bengal proved to be a handful in the finals and Madurika lost 0-4.
In Junior Boys, Raegan Albuquerque regally marched into the finals but had to dig deep there to oust Manush Shah of Gujarat 4-2 to bag the gold medal.
