2 months ago
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The prime of balls being utilized astatine the 87th elder inter-State and National array tennis championship, sponsored by Ultimate Table Tennis, has travel nether scrutiny, with respective paddlers and coaches voicing concerns.
The tourney is utilizing Stag Global balls, manufactured by an Indian company. While these are ITTF-approved, they are not commonly utilized successful World Table Tennis (WTT) events oregon large planetary competitions, nor are they consistently utilized crossed apical home tournaments.
“These balls are lighter and get brushed precise early. Since these balls are not utilized successful WTT events oregon astatine World Cups and Championships, we hardly play with them,” Manav Thakkar, World No. 33 and the highest-ranked Indian successful the men’s draw, told The Hindu connected Wednesday.
“Had we known good successful advance, we could person trained with these balls to adapt. It would beryllium amended if determination were consistency successful the balls utilized passim the home season.”
The inconsistency has been evident crossed the circuit. While 4 of the 5 nationalist ranking tournaments this play utilized Stag balls, different opted for Stiga. The inter-institutional tourney — the second-most prestigious elder home lawsuit — featured DHS balls, which are besides utilized successful planetary competitions.
Competition manager N. Ganesan, however, defended the choice. “We person been utilizing lone ITTF-approved balls, and it’s the aforesaid lawsuit for the National Championship,” helium said.
Former planetary and Arjuna awardee Soumyadeep Roy echoed the concerns, noting that the balls thin to “get brushed excessively soon and hardly impart spin.” Sandeep Ghosh, father-cum-coach of Swastika Ghosh, had besides written to the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) past month, urging standardisation successful enactment with WTT events.
A TTFI official, requesting anonymity, said: “The federation has to look aft the interests of each players. These balls are manufactured by the aforesaid planetary institution that produces respective apical planetary brands, including Stag.”
Top results: Mixed doubles: round-of-64: P. Yeshwanth & Trupti Purohit (Kar) w/o Payas Jain & Syndrela Das (PSPB); Rishabh Mayank & Sneha Bhowmick (Har) bt Harkunwar Singh & Kaashvi Gupta 11,6 11-9, 11-8; Chitrax Bhatt & Frenaz Chipia (Guj) bt Siddhesh Pande & Shriya Anand (TN) 11-8, 11-2, 11-7; Agniv Gohain & Bhavna Kashyap (Asm) bt Nithin V. & M. Kajanethra (Pon) 11-4, 11-7, 11-5; B. Rajasekaran Muthu & Senenadeepti Selvakumar (TN) bt Harsh Srivastava & Sunidhi Dewan (Raj) 11-6, 7-11, 11-7, 11-6.
