PANAJI: Rakshit Barigdad starred for Accolades Table Tennis Academy in the Super 6 League match of the Open Team championship, but that was not enough as his team went down fighting to star studded JSA communications, on day three of the 5th All India Invitational MSC Cup Table Tennis championship, underway at multipurpose stadium, Peddem.
Rakshit, the Karnataka number one, stunned the current National Doubles champion Sourav Saha 3-2, and thereafter won his reverse singles against Surojit Das with a similar 3-2 score line. But JSA’s Arjun Ghosh, a former National champion, was in his elements, winning both his matches with comfortable 3 -0 margins against Dianakar and Nikhil to notch up an equally strong performance. In Doubles, Sourav Saha / Surojit Das teamed up for JSA to prevail over Nikhil / Dinakar, winning 3-1. JSA won the thrilling encounter with a 3-2 margin to emerge atop the Group.
Team AVSC, represented by Swarnedu Chaudhary, Ali MD, Arindam Debnath and Sai Prashant edged out Accolades Table Tennis Academy in another league match to emerge second in the group. The fight among the Super 6 was among these three top teams, with JSA and AVSC emerging 1 and 2 to qualify for the finals, whereas Accolades had to settle for the 3rd place.
In the Under-15 Open Team championship event, Little Champs represented by Goa’s top sub junior paddlers Rishan Shaikh, Khushal Naik, Aaron Farias and Akshan Lawande are through to the finals, where they will meet BTTA Paddlers. Samaira Soares, Ayushi Godse and Tanishka Kalbhairav played well for BTTA to lead their team into the finals. The championship, organised by Miramar Sports Club will witness individual matches on Day 4 with the finals scheduled on Tuesday.
