Many Indian group matches at the Australian Open Table tennis tournament today

Harmeet Desai will start his match at 6 PM (Geelong time) at the Seamaster 2018 ITTF World Tour Platinum Australian Open at Geelong. Sathiyan and Sharath will play their matches next followed by Manav a little later in the day. Sanil and Amalraj have already played their first matches yesterday. Sharath and Sathiyan have relatively easy opposition while Manav faces the formidable Maharu Yoshimura.

In the Women's singles, India's star player Manika Batra plays her match tomorrow. In a bizzare pairing, Sutirtha Mukherjee will face off against Ayhika Mukherjee in a group match. Bizzare because they've traveled thousands of kilometers to play at the Australian open from their home where they live just some kilometers apart! Pooja Sahasrabuddhe Koparkar won her tough group match earlier.

Photo courtesy of the ITTF. Only for representational purposes.

Divya, Amalraj win Central Zone National Table Tennis Ranking tournament at Jamnagar, Gujarat

Divya Mahajan nee Deshpande and A Amalraj won the Central Zone National Ranking Table Tennis tournament at Jamnagar. In the finals, Divya beat Pooja, while Amalraj beat Sanil Shetty. 

Results: 
Men: Final: Anthony Amalraj (PSPB) bt Sanil Shetty (PSPB) 11-3, 12-10, 4-11, 11-7, 11-8; 
Women: Final: Divya Deshpande (Mah) bt Pooja Sahasrabudhe (PSPB) 7-11, 6-11, 11-8, 11-7, 11-5, 11-8; 
Youth Boys: Final: Ravindra Kotiyan (Mah) bt Birdie Boro (PSPB) 11-6, 12-10, 12-10, 4-11, 11-7; 
Youth Girls: Final: Reeth Rishya (PSPB) bt Manika Batra (PSPB) 7-11, 13-11, 11-9, 9-11, 9-11, 12-10, 11-6;

Ankita, Sharath, Soumyajit, and Amalraj nominated for The Times of India Sports Awards (TOISA)

Table Tennis stars Ankita Das, Sharath Kamal, Soumyajit Ghosh, and A Amalraj have been nominated for The Times of India Sports Awards (TOISA).

The winners will be chosen by online voting as well as by a jury of famous Indian sportpersons.

The jury has legends like Ramesh Krishnan, Zafar Iqbal, Sorav Ganguly, Anju Bobby George, Bobili Vijay Kumar, and Rajesh Kalra.

Visit www.toi.in/toisa to check the current online voting trends.

Amalraj beats top World Top 100 player, Seo Hyun Deok at the Korean Open

A Amal Raj of India beat much higher ranked SEO Hyun Deok. It is worth noting that Hyun Deok has previously beaten World and Olympic Champion Zhang Jike a couple of years back.

A great win for Amal Raj and one more step towards world class standards from Indian players. Another great achievement was when young Harmeet Desai lost a golden opportunity to beat Singapore legend Gao Ning, who was ranked in the World top 20 for several years. Harmeet was leading 3-1 and lost 4-3.

Four Indian Table Tennis players reached the Men's main draw. Amal Raj progressed the farthest.

Editor

Madhurikaa Patkar and Amalraj win East Zone National Ranking titles

Madhurikaa Patkar and A Amalraj won the Women's and Men's titles at the East Zone National Ranking Table Tennis tournament at Siliguri. Sutirtha Mukherjee and Abhishek Yadav and won the Youth titles while, Ayhika and Lalrin Puia won the junior titles.

Scores courtesy TTFI. Photos courtesy ITTF.

Men: Final: A Amal Raj (PSPB) bt Soumyajit Ghosh (PSPB) 4-2 (15-13, 11-7, 5-11, 7-11, 11-8,11-8).

Women: Final: Madhurika Patkar bt Mouma Das 4-0 (11-7, 11-2, 11-4, 11-7).

Junior Boys: Final: Lalrin Puia (PSPBA) bt Abhishek Yadav (PSPBA) 4-2

Junior Girls: Final: Ayhika Mukherjee (AAI) bt Sagarika Mukherjee (NB) 4-2

Youth Boys: Final: AbhishekYadav (PSPB) bt Sourav Saha (PSPB) 4-2

Youth Girls: Final: Suthirtha Mukherjee (WB) bt Reeth Tennison (PSPB) 4-2

Harmeet Desai to play Xu Xin tomorrow at the Asian Table Tennis Championships at Busan

Young Harmeet Desai will face World No. 1 Xu Xin in the third round of the Asian Championships at Busan. The match will be played tomorrow at 10:30 AM India time.

Ankita Das beat players from Vietnam and Korea to reach the pre-quarterfinals.

Sharath Kamal is in good nick but has a tough opponent in Zhou Yu of China. Zhou survived a tough 2nd round battle battle.
Amalraj will play against Jian Tianyi and Sanil Shetty will face off against Kenta Matsudaira.

Soumyajit Ghosh was unfortunate to run into a world beater in the 2nd round and lost to Cho Eon Rae (World top 50 player)

Editor
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Soumyajit and Sanil are top seeds in Men's Table Tennis National Championships, Amalraj and Sharath seeded lower

Soumyajit Ghosh and Sanil Shetty are seeded No. 1 and 2 in the Men's National Table Tennis Championships. Harmeet Desai and Soumyadeep Roy are in 3-4. The increasing depth of the quality of Table Tennis is evident from the 5-8 seedings, where Sharath Kamal and defending National Champion, A Amalraj are placed along with Subhajit Saha and Jubin Kumar.

One reason for Sharath and Amalraj's lower seeding is that they are unable to participate in all domestic tournaments due to their overseas commitments.

Editor

Indian National Table Tennis Championships at Raipur starts today.

The 74th Senior National Table Tennis Championships start at the Balbir Singh Juneja Indoor Stadium, Raipur. The Championships run from 7 to 12 January 2013.

PSPB and Maharashtra are the top seeds in the Men's and Team events. PSPB will fight hard to get back the Women's title, while it will be a great surprise if anyone is able to even give a semblance of a fight to the PSPB men. The star players will be Poulomi Ghatak, K Shamini, Ankita Das, Madhurika Patkar, Pooja Sahasrabudhe, Divya Deshpande, Mamta Prabhu, Sharath Kamal, A Amalraj, Soumyajit Ghosh, Sanil Shetty, Soumyadeep Roy, G Sathiyan, Subhajit Saha, and Sourav Chakraborty.

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More news:
http://www.tabletennisbug.com/2013/01/delhi-wins-national-womens-team-table.html
http://www.tabletennisbug.com/2013/01/soumyajit-and-sanil-are-top-seeds-in.html

Amalraj and Soumyajit Stars of India Table Tennis at the Asian Championships

Anthony Amalraj was the star of the Indian team at the Asian Table Tennis Championships including in the Quarter final. Facing Chinese Taipei and with the prospects of an unprecedented medal, Amalraj won two rubbers against higher ranked opponents, but his team mates could not finish off their rivals.

Earlier, Amalraj shone against the Iranians too and young Soumyajit Ghosh won the decider against a very experienced opponent.

The Women too did well to reach the Champions group and the Quarterfinals, where they lost to the formidable Chinese team.