The Hindu : Sport : Prathamesh Mokal is the new National ‘B’ champion

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 21, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport

Prathamesh Mokal is the new National ‘B’ champion

WINNING SMILE: Prathamesh Sunil Mokal poses with the trophy.

DINDIGUL: Prathamesh Mokal made just eight moves and then decided to let destiny decide his fate. A few hours later, destiny made the 23-year-old from Pune the new National ‘B’ champion, as his only rival for the title at that point of time, B. Adhiban, had to settle for a draw despite fighting it out for a win against Akshat Khamparia, in the 13th and final round of the 45th National ‘B’ championship at the PSNA College of Engineering and Technology here on Wednesday.

The 14-year-old from Chennai was the only one among the five contenders — which also included S. Kidami, M.R. Venkatesh and K. Ratnakaran — who wanted to play for the title, rather than opting for a quick draw, which was what Mokal, for whom this was a maiden National title, did.

Progressive scores

All the five finished with 9.5 points, leaving progressive scores to break the tie. Adhiban thus finished runner-up, followed by Ratnakaran, Venkatesh and Kidambi.

Expectedly, most of the 30 berths for the National ‘A’, to be held in Chennai later in the year, were decided by friendly draws in the final round, but Nisha Mohota, Roktim Bandyopadhyay, Mehar Chinna Reddy, M.S. Thejkumar, Rahul Shetty and Neeraj Kumar Mishra came through after winning their must-win games. With 22 players making the grade with nine points apiece, three players — P. Konguvle, N. Sanjay and Mishra — with 8.5 each also qualified.

13 new faces

There will be 13 new faces at the National ‘A’ — Adhiban, Khamparia, M.R. Lalith Babu, Preetham R. Sharma, Shashikant Kutwal, Vidit Santosh Gujarathi, Imocha Laisram, who finally made it after making his National `B’ debut in 1983, R. Arun Karthik, S.P. Sethuraman, R. Ashwath, Nisha, Mehar and Sanjay.

Important results (13th round): Sundararajan Kidambi 9.5 drew with M.R. Venkatesh 9.5; Saptarshi Roy 9 drew with K. Ratnakaran 9.5; B. Adhiban 9.5 drew with Akshat Khamparia 9; Prathamesh Mokal 9.5 drew with N. Sudhakar Babu 9; Sriram Jha 9 drew with M.R. Lalith Babu 9; S. Satyapragyan 9 drew with Preetham R. Sharma 9; Shashikant Kutwal 9 drew with Ashwin Jayaram 9; Shankar Roy 9 drew with Vidit Santosh Gujarathi 9; T.S. Ravi 9 drew with Imocha Laisram 9; R. Arun Karthik 9 drew with S.P. Sethuraman 9; R. Ashwath 9 drew with B.S. Sivanandan 9; C. Praveen Kumar 8.5 drew with P. Konguvel 8.5; P. Shyam Nikhil 8 lost to Nisha Mohota 9; Roktim Bandyopadhyay 9 bt Ravi Hegde 8; G.B. Prakash 8 lost to Mehar Chinna Reddy 9; N. Srinath 8.5 drew with N. Sanjay 8.5; Aditya Udeshi 8.5 drew with Swapnil S. Dhopade 8.5; M. Shyam Sundar 8 lost to M.S. Thejkumar 9; Rahul Shetty 9 bt Nassir Wajih 8; Abhijeet Gupta 8.5 bt Atanu Lahiri 7.5; Vinay Kumar Matta 8 drew with Himanshu Sharma 8; Anup Deshmukh 7.5 lost to Neeraj Kumar Mishra 8.5.