National Games 2022: Top seeds Sathiyam, Sharath, Batra advance

Top-seeded table tennis players sailed through to the next round of the National Games, securing easy wins over their opponents on Thursday.
Number 1 and number 2 seeds from Tamil Nadu, G. Sathiyan and A. Sharath Kamal, toyed with their respective opponents scoring an identical 4-0 wins to move into the pre-quarterfinals of the men’s singles in the 36th National Games at the Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya Indoor Stadium here today. But third-seed Sanil Shetty from Maharashtra had to endure UP’s Divyansh Srivastava in his Round of 32 matches, eventually joining the top seeds in the Round of 16 with a 4-3 win. Similarly, former national champion and seventh seed Soumyajit Ghosh warded off an imminent threat of elimination from Raegan Albuquerque of Maharashtra to enter the pre-quarters, winning 4-3.
Sanil, leading 3-2, and 7-5 in the sixth game, allowed Divyansh to come back and take the game to level 3-3. However, the Maharashtra left-hander, was in a lot of trouble as he trailed 0-4 in the decider. But the former national champion showed his aggressive style to relaunch himself into the match and beat the UP boy with a minimal point.
Soumyajit Ghosh, leading 2-1, let an opening for Raegan in the next two games and went 3-2 up, challenging the Haryana paddler’s existence. But the past master had some tricks up his sleeve to level the score and, despite trailing 3-6 in the decider and dropping a match point, won in the second to advance.
Manika Batra, the women’s top seed, spent as little time as possible on the show court before disposing of G. Pranitha of Telangana 4-0. But sixth-seed Prapti Sen went down 2-4 to Haryana’s Suhana Saini, a lone upset that hardly raised a stir. All other seeds moved into the next round easily.