Indore, March 16: Defending champion Diya Chitale retained the youth girls title with a hard-fought win while Swastika Ghosh came-from behind to claim her maiden junior girls crown at the UTT 82nd Junior and Youth National Table Tennis Championships here on Tuesday.
Diya’s 4-3 triumph was full of a character-assessment lesson for any youngster watching the match, as the Maharashtra paddler, down 2-3 and 3-5 in the sixth game, first built up confidence and then the points to outsmart Karnataka’s Yashaswini Ghorphade.
The decider summed up Diya’s character in as many words when she mounted an 8-0 lead to make the title-triumph a runaway and box-office hit, fetching her Rs. 63,000 in prize money.
Meanwhile, Swastika, also from Maharashtra, claimed the junior girls title with a 4-2 victory over Haryana’s Suhana Saini in the final.
Suhana had everything going for her until the second game. She took the vital 2-0 lead, winning the second game on extended points.
However, Swastika upped the quality of her game and used a mix-matched attack on the flanks. They fetched her the crucial points and, at times, put the Haryana girl into a push-back mode rather than play herself in and attack. All of these went in Swastika’s favour. (PTI)
