With the seeded players finding it tough to play to their billing, unseeded Sarthak Gandhi gate-crashed into the men's singles semifinals in the 44th inter-institutional table tennis championship here on Wednesday.
Sarthak, who has been playing in club-competitions in Sweden for the past three years, has not been able to go past the pre-quarterfinals of ranking tournaments. But on this day, he upstaged former National champion Soumyadeep Roy 4-3 and took out Lakshminarayanan Sathishwaran, the conqueror of second seed Harmeet Desai, in five games.
In the semifinals, Sarthak will play third seed G. Sathiyan while top seed Sanil Shetty will take on Soumyajit Ghosh, seeded four.
In the women’s section, too, the top half of the draw saw surprise outcomes. Mousumi Paul knocked out top seed and National champion Ankita Das 4-1 in the pre-quarterfinals and then packed off veteran Anindita Chakraborty for a place in the semifinals against Pooja Saharabudhe.
Pooja, seeded four, got past Reeth Rishya — the girl who upset in-form but injured Manika Batra — to reach the last-four stage. From the bottom half of the draw, second seed Madhurika Patkar and third seed Poulomi Ghatak stayed on course.
The results: Quarterfinals: Men: G. Sathiyan (Pet) bt Lalrin Puia (Pet) 11-9, 11-3, 11-7, 11-3; Sanil Shetty (Pet) bt Sourav Saha (Pet) 11-7, 11-8, 11-6, 9-11, 11-6; Soumyajit Ghosh (Pet) bt Subhajit Saha (Pet) 11-5, 11-5, 5-11, 11-8, 7-11, 11-6; Sarthak Gandhi (FCI) bt L. Sathishwaran (LIC) 11-3, 14-12, 8-11, 11-9, 11-7.
Women: Mousumi Paul (Pet) bt Anindita Chakraborti (Rlys) 11-2, 11-5, 11-8, 11-3; Pooja Sahasrabudhe (Pet) bt Reeth Rishya (Pet) 7-11, 5-11, 12-10, 11-1, 11-8, 11-7; Poulomi Ghatak (Pet) bt Neha Aggarwal (Pet) 7-11, 11-9, 11-7, 5-11, 11-6, 11-6; Madhurika Patkar (Pet) bt Mouma Das (Pet)11-3, 9-11, 11-5, 11-9, 11-9.
Mixed doubles: Final: Jubin Kumar (Har) and Neha Aggarwal (Pet) bt Subhajit Saha and Nandita Saha (Pet) 12-10, 11-9, 11-7.
