PANAJI
Shantesh Mapsekar, Aarav Aiyar and Nagesh Verenker were the lone Goans to qualify into the main draw of Cadet and Sub Junior Table Tennis Nationals underway at the S P Mukerjee stadium, Taleigao.
In the main draw round one match, Aarav lost 0-3 to Oishik Ghosh (West Bengal) while Shantesh -- who is seeded number two in this championship -- breezed past Delhi's Japjit Singh Maan 3-0 to enter the round of 32 in Cadet Boys category.
Sub Junior Boys singles will witness exciting matches on the final day with Jeho, the reigning champion and seeded No 4, having an onerous task of retaining the crown as he is drawn in the top-half where he has contenders like Yashansh Malik, Jayabrata Bhattachrjee and the top-seed Deepit Patil from
Maharashtra.
Similarly, No 2 seed Payas Jain, who finished with a bronze medal at Siliguri, will have to worry about an in-form Dev Shroff, who led Maharashtra to team title in the championship earlier.
As for Sub Junior Girls, a title fight is expected between top-seeded Trisha Gogoi of Assam and Munmun Kundu of West Bengal, the No 2 seed. Delhi's Vanshika Bhargava, Mihika Rohira and Diya Chitale of Maharashtra could be the surprise packages in the section.
The doubles action entered the closing stages on Monday when Maharashtra, riding on their recent successes, made it to the finals of both Sub Junior Boys and Girls when Deepit Rajesh Patil and Dev Shroff combined well to beat Tamil Nadu's top pair of Preyesh Raj and Vishwa Deenadayalan 3-1, while Diya Chitale and Mihika Rohira accounted for Karnataka's Anargya Manjunath and Yashaswini Ghorpade, also by the same margin.
However, the other Maharashtra duo of Samruddi Kulkarni and Kheya Shah went down to the Haryana pair of Suhana Saini and Poornima Rohilla as the latter won 3-2 in what was the only tough semi-final.
Earlier, Delhi's Payas Jain and Arush Dutta beat the PSPB Academy's duo H Jeho and Alberto Lrruata 3-1 to earn a meeting with the Maharashtra pair in Tuesday's final.
