The Hindu : Sport / Table Tennis : Raman, Poulami get top billing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 30, 2004

Sport

Sport - Table Tennis

Raman, Poulami get top billing

KOLKATA, OCT. 29. The season's first zonal, the National ranking table tennis championship (East Zone), will commence at the SAI, Eastern Centre, here on Saturday. All the top players, including last year's champions, Soumyadeep Roy and Poulami Ghatak, have confirmed their participation. Veteran S. Raman and Poulami of PSPB have been seeded No. 1 in the men's and women's sections, respectively.

Among the notable absentees are National No. 1 A. Sharath Kamal, now busy playing in Sweden. Shivaji Dutta and R. Rajesh will also be missed because of their commitments in Spain. M.S. Mythili has indicated her inability to take part.

Soumyadeep Roy and Subhajit Saha (Sr.), currently playing in Iran, would be arriving here on Sunday for the championship. Only the qualifying rounds will be played on the opening day. The main round action would begin on Sunday afternoon.

The meet will carry a total prize money of Rs.1.4 lakh to be distributed among the winners, runners-up, losing semifinalists and losing quarterfinalists in six events: men, women, junior boys and girls and sub-junior boys and girls singles events.

One of the vice-presidents of the TTFI, Probir Mitra, informed a press conference here on Friday that the next zonal, the North Zone ranking, has been put off owing to non-availability of an indoor stadium.

Thane would be hosting the West Zone ranking from November 30 to December 4 followed by the Inter-Petroleum meet at Bangalore from December 4 to 8. Bangalore would also host the South Zone ranking from December 8 to 12. The Central Zone ranking would be at Baroda from December 14 to 18.

The seedings: Men: 1. S. Raman (PSPB), 2. Soumyadeep Roy (PSPB), 3. Ranabir Das (PSPB), 4. Subhum Chowdhury (PSPB), 5. Anirban Nandy (RSPB), 6. Subhajit Saha (Sr) (PSPB), 7. Arup Basak (PSPB), 8. Amit Das (RSPB).

Women: 1. Poulami Ghatak (PSPB), 2. Mouma Das (PSPB), 3. Mamta Prabhu (RSPB), 4. N.R. Indu (PSPB), 5. Mantu Ghosh (PSPB), 6. Nandita Saha (PSPB), 7. T. Pradeepa (PSPB), 8. Anindita Chakraborty (RSPB).