Team India’s Cadet girls defeated Chinese Taipei 3-1 to grab the gold medal in the ongoing 2019 ITTF Junior Circuit Premium Oman Junior and Cadet Open at Muscat today.
The second Indian team, also bagged a bronze, when it went down 2-3 to the ‘A’ team in the semi-final. Indian Cadet Boys teams also added two bronze medals when they failed to go past the semi-final hurdle, as the A and B teams lost to Taipei and Russia, respectively, by an identical margin of 0-3. The B team Cadet Girls members that won bronze included Suhana Saini of Haryana and Taneesha Kotecha of Maharashtra.
In Junior Girls team event, both the Indian teams finished No. 2 and No. 3 in group standings to win the silver and bronze medals. But in Junior Boys, one of the two Indian teams won bronze when it went down 1-3 to Iran in the semi-finals.
The gold-winning team of India A in Cadet Girls, comprising, Kavyashree Baskar of Tamil Nadu and Nilisma Sarkar of West Bengal, had to fight for the gold. Kavyashree beat Cheng Pu- Syuan 8-11, 1-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-6 but Nilisma lost 11-9, 4-11, 11-9, 11-13, 4-11 to Liang yuan-Ting in the second rubber. But the Indian duo beat them in straight sets of 11-9, 11-9, 11-9 in the doubles to gain the upper hand before Kavyashree sealed their fate in the reverse singles against Liang winning it 11-2, 11-7, 5-11, 11-7 for the top-of-podium finish.
Junior Girls get silver, bronze
Taipei, however, avenged their gold loss by pushing the A team of India in Junior Girls to the second spot as the Indian girls, consisting of Anargya Manjunath and Swastika Ghosh, failed to repeat what the Cadet Girls did in a tough match against Taipei.
Indeed, the Indians were caught on the wrong foot when Anargaya lost their opening singles. Cai Fong-En beat the Karnataka girl 6-11, 13-11, 11-1, 9-11, 11-6 but the Maharashtra girl defeated Hsu Yi-Chen 14-12, 11-8, 11-7 to level the score and then, combing win Anargaya, accounted for the Taipei pair 11-9, 11-9, 6-11, 11-9 to put India 2-1 up through the doubles triumph.
But in the reverse singles, the Taipei girls proved very tough as Swastika lost to Cai 11-9, 8-11, 9-11, 8-11 and Anargaya to Hsu 8-11, 9-11, 3-11.
In their other group matches, India A had beaten India B (3-1), Greece-England combine (3-1) and Sri Lanka 3-0.
The B team, comprising Anusha Kutumbale and Munmun Kundu, lost their matches to India A and Chinese Taipei but registered wins over Greece-England and Sri Lanka to end up with the bronze medal.
