The Hindu : Sport / Table Tennis : Koparkar, Shamini in main draw

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 27, 2005

Sport

Sport - Table Tennis

Koparkar, Shamini in main draw

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Aniket Koparkar and K. Shamini were the only Indian qualifiers in the main draw of the singles events while Neha Aggarwal reached the cadet girls' semifinals of the Asian junior table tennis championship at the NDMC Indoor Stadium here on Tuesday.

Koparkar managed to find a place among the 23 qualifiers after R. Abhishek, Soumyajit Sarkar and Sanil Shetty surrendered to Chinese rivals.

Koparkar made it after beating Seah Jun Wen (Singapore) 11-8, 12-10, 9-11, 11-6 and Mohammad Nasser Al Saadi (Qatar) 11-7, 5-11, 11-9, 11-3.

Liu Miao took care of Abhishek 11-8, 11-8, 11-6, Xu Xin stopped Soumyajit Sarkar 11-7, 11-7, 9-11, 11-4 and Li Yang brushed aside Sanil Shetty 11-8, 11-8, 11-7.

Barring Shamini, all Indian girls made their exit in the first stage itself. Shamini got the better of Hong Kong's Lee Ho Ching 11-8, 8-11, 11-6, 11-9.

However, J. Swarna lost to Taipei's Liu Hsin Ying 11-9, 5-11, 8-11, 5-11, Madhurika Patkar went down 6-11, 3-11, 11-6, 10-12 to Korea's Moon Su Jung, Salankanra Mohalanobish surrendered 12-14, 7-11, 6-11 to China's Wu Yang and Neha Aggarwal bowed to Korea's Nam So Mi 11-8, 4-11, 8-11, 5-11.

Japan's reputation suffers

A day after being surprised by the semifinals of both section of the team event, Japan's reputation took a further beating with Chinese Taipie's Hsiung Nai Yi knocking out second seed Yuri Yamanashi in straight games, that too, in the first stage league of the girls singles.

Cadet girls' top seed Yuko Fujii failed to make it to the quarterfinals after running into Singapore's Sim Kai Xin Zena. The Singapore girl won 7-11, 11-8, 11-13, 11-7, 11-7 to earn a semifinal clash with Neha Aggarwal.

The Delhi girl made it with an impressive straight-game victory over Korea's Nam Ye Jin. However, it must be remembered that the cadet girls' event is not considered part of the championship and China, as in the past, has not bothered even to send an entry.

The results:

Cadet girls (quarterfinals): Neha Aggarwal (Ind) bt Nam Ye Jin (Kor) 11-8, 11-8, 11-3; Lee Ho Ching (Hkg) bt Ting Hie Pain (Mas) 11-8, 9-11, 11-4, 11-8).

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