Soumyajit,
Poulomi lead Indian challenge at Cairo
Olympian
Soumyajit Ghosh, fresh from his double-crown winning performance at the recdently-concluded
National Ranking (Central Zone) Table Tennis Championships at Jodhpur, will
spearhead the Indian challenge at the Egypt Open, beginning in Cairo from
tomorrow.
He will have for
company in the men’s section, Soumyadeep Roy, Jubin Kumar, Sanil Shetty, Harmeet
Desai and G.Sathiyan while it will be Poulomi Ghatak who will lead the women’s
team at Cairo along with K. Shamini, Olympian Ankita Das, Divya Deshpande,
Mousumi Paul and Mamata Prabhu.
They were picked to
represent the country after their consistent performances at the Inter-Institutional
TT championships in Kolkata in August, the season opener, and the two zonals—the
South Zone meet at Bangalore early last month and Central Zone event at Jodhpur
last week.
The national selectors,
who were at Jodhpur to pick the squad for the December World Junior
Championships to be held in Hyderabad, decided that before the Junior Worlds
the Egypt Open, which is a Euro-Africa circuit event, which is between October
4 and 7, will serve as a good exposure to the Indians.
“This is one event
where paddlers from both Europe and African and Asian nations will compete and
will be a good experience for our paddlers,” said TTFI secretary-general
Dhanraj Choudhary.
The team is accompanied
by coaches S. Raman and Vijayasarathi Seshadri, who is attached with the Sports
Authority of India.
On the eve of the
departure, the team members exuded confidence of a good performance. And coach Raman
said the “Egypt Open has proved to be lucky hunting ground our paddles in the
past and I hope they do put their best foot forward in the event.”
The team: Men: Soumyajit
Ghosh, Soumyadeep Roy, Jubin Kumar, Sanil Shetty, Harmeet Desai and G.
Sathiyan.
Women: Poulomi Ghatak,
K. Shamini, Ankita Das, Divya Deshpande, Mousmi Paul and Mamata Prabhu.
Coaches: S. Raman and
Vijayasarathi Seshadri.
