Harmeet Desai beats Manav Thakkar to clinch maiden national title

Harmeet Desai won his first national title by defeating fourth seed Manav Thakkar 4-3 in the finals of the 81st National Table Tennis Championships on Sunday. In the women’s division, Sutirtha Mukherjee of Haryana defeated Kritwika Sinha Rai 4-0 in a one-sided match to be crowned the champion. Sutirtha also won the team event gold in the women’s doubles and silver in the mixed event.

Sixth seed Harmeet reached the finals of this tournament for the first time since 2013. He was awarded prize money of Rs 2.5 lakh for becoming the champion while Sutirtha got a prize of Rs 1.65 lakh.

Sixth seed Harmeet who was playing his first final since 2013, in the beginning, looked to race away with the match as he took an 11-4 lead, however, the fourth seed Manav was not ready to go down without a fight as he restored parity with a 13-11 win in the second game. The final turned out to be a nail-biting affair as both Harmeet and Manav, who were facing each other in the finals for the first time, were not ready to give up easily. Harmeet went on to win the third and the fifth games by a score of 1412 and 11-8 respectively. Manav leveled soon by winning the fourth and the sixth games 11-9 and 11-5 respectively.

Harmeet then went on the settle the score in the final round by winning 11-5 to claim his maiden national title.

Harmeet Desai enjoyed s successful run in the tournament as he overcame Soumyajit Ghosh in the semifinal. Soumyjit had booked a spot in the semifinal of the singles competition with a big upset win over veteran Achanta Sharath Kamal.

In the men’s doubles, the pair of Zubin Kumar and Soumyajit Ghosh defeated Manush Shah and Ishan Hingorani 7-11, 11-8, 3-11, 7-11 (3–1). In women’s doubles, Sutirtha and Reeti Shankar defeated Surbhi Patwari and Poyamanti Baishya 3–1. Sutirtha, however, lost in mixed doubles. His pairing with Sourav Saha was defeated by the pair of Ronit Bhanja and Moushumi Pal.