The Hindu : Sport / Table Tennis : Sarkar stages a dream comeback

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 23, 2004

Sport

Sport - Table Tennis

Sarkar stages a dream comeback

By Rakesh Rao

NEW DELHI, JULY 22. Five seasons ago at the NDMC Indoor Stadium here, Soumyajit Sarkar had won the cadet title in the Northern India tournament. But minutes later, he was stripped of the title after one of the Bengal coaches produced a xerox copy of Sarkar's `original' birth certificate.

On Thursday, Sarkar, armed with a birth certificate to prove that he was born in 1991, claimed the cadet title at the Asian junior table tennis championship at the same venue where his true age came to light in 1999.

What is more interesting that with the age-limit for cadets at the Asian level being 15 years, Sarkar can even return next year to defend the title!

For the coaches, officials as well as some of the office-bearers of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), the subject of Sarkar's age is "too controversial'' to comment.

The controversy took much of the sheen away from Sarkar's dream comeback to win the championship beating Korea's Kim Gang Woog 9-11, 14-12, 7-11, 12-10, 12-10.

During the even battle, where the Korean coach attracted a red card in the final game, Sarkar saved three match-points in the fourth game and converted his third championship point in the decider after having squandered a 5-0 lead.

It was a double disappointment for Korea as Jin Dal Rae also went down in five games to Japan's Misako Wakamiya in the cadet girls final. Misako blew away to 2-0 lead before winning in five games against her defensive Korean rival.

Divya Sarkar and Sanil Shetty had earlier reached the semifinals in their respective sections to ensure a bronze medal each.

The results: Cadet boys: Final: Soumyajit Sarkar (Ind) bt Kim Gang Woog (Kor) 9-11, 14-12, 7-11, 12-10, 12-10; Semifinals: Kim Gang Woog bt Chan Yon Hang (Hkg) 12-10, 11-9, 11-6; Sarkar bt Sanil Shetty 11-2, 11-2, 11-9.

Cadet girls: Final: Misako Wakamiya (Jap) bt Jin Dal Rae (Kor) 11-7, 11-5, 10-12, 8-11, 11-9; Semifinals: Misako bt Divya Deshpande 13-15, 11-9, 11-4, 11-9; Jin Dal Rae bt Ishara Madurangi (Sri) 8-11, 11-7, 11-9, 11-5.

The singles qualifiers for knockout phase: Boys (22): Zhang Jike (Chn), Sieya Kishikawa (Jpn), Wu Chih-Chi (Tpe), Cho Eon Rae (Kor), Ma Long (Chn), Chou Tang-Yu (Tpe), Jun Mizutni (Jpn), Kang Dong Hoon (Kor), Yeo In Ho (Kor), Lin Chen (Chn), Tang Yushi (Chn), Han Ji Min (Kor), Kasumasa Ikeda (Jpn), Sun Wen-Wei (Tpe), Ibrahem Alhasan (Kuw), Soumyajit Sarkar (Ind), Tatsuya Ono (Jap), Subhadip Das (Ind), Jiang Tianyi (Chn), Li Kwnun Ngai (Hkg), Hiromitsu Kasahara (Jpn) and Aniket Koparkar (Ind). Girls (20): Jee Min Hyung (Kor), Lee I-Chen (Tpe), Yuka Ishigaki (Jpn), Nozomi Hasama (Jpn), Meomi Terui (Jpn), Cho Moon Young (Kor), Cai Sai (Chn), Seo Myeong Eun (Kor), Shiho Sugimoto (Jpn), Yu Kwok See (Hkg), Mousami Paul (Ind), Shu Hui-Tsun (Tpe), Kou Su-Hua (Tpe), Hou Xiaoxu (Chn), Feng Yalan (Chn), Park Seo Hee (Kor), Ding Ning (Chn), Redjedi Yayuk (Ina), Liu Shiwen (Chn) and Park Seong Hye (Kor).

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