Hyderabad: As many as 11 players from Telangana entered the main draw of the 77th Senior National and Inter-State Table Tennis Championships that begins at the Kotla Vijay Bhaskara Reddy Indoor Stadium here on Saturday.
Y. Chandrachud, P. Vighney Reddy, Somnath Ghosh and S. Fidel R. Snehit made the men’s section while Nikhat Banu, Varuni Jaiswal, Sreeja Akula, Naina Jaiswal, V. Laasya, Monika Manohar and Pranitha Garlapati would be seen in action on the distaff side.
Nikhat made the main draw purely on her rankings though while the other six benefitted from Telangana’s status as the host. Nikhat in fact is seeded eighth. India’s paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal (the best ranked from the country at No.67 in the world) has been accorded the pride of place in the main draw.
The other seeds in the men’s section include Anthony Amalraj, Soumyajit Ghosh, Harmeet Desai, Devesh Karia, G. Sathiyan, Sudhanshu Grover and Sanil Shetty. Manika Batra is the top seed in the women’s draw, followed by Mouma Das, K. Shamini, Divya Deshpande, Pooja Sahastrabudhe, Ankita Das, Madhurika Patkar and Nikhat Banu. Of the 52 qualifiers, West Bengal has the maximum representation with seven.
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