Indian eves follow their male counterparts, enters quarterfinal

Jaipur, May 31 (UNI) Hosts India, defending champion Singapore alongwith Australia and Malaysia qualified for the women's team event quarter-finals in the 17th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship here today.

Indian eves who overcame South Africa in their opening tie yesterday, continued their dominating performance as they trounced both England and Maldives 3-0 this morning to top their group.

In the first tie of the day, National champion Mouma Das made shortwork of England's Helen Lower 11-5, 11-4, 12-10 to put India ahead. Poulomi Ghatak started shakily as she dropped the second game against Kelly Sibley but overcame strongly and defeated the English girl in four sets 11-4, 9-11, 11-7, 11-6. However, Shamini Kumaresan had no difficulty in disposing off Natalie Bowden 11-7, 11-6, 11-9.

Despite losing to India convincingly, England managed to qualify for the quaterfinals by securing the second position in Group-D. New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria are the other three teams who will joim them in the last eight.

In another group tie, the mighty Singaporean had a 3-0 cake walk over their Kiwi cpounterparts. World ranked eighth Yue Gu Wang thrashed Annie Yang 11-6, 11-3, 11-5, followed by world ranked 19th Bei Bei Sun whipping Karenjinili Li 11-5, 11-6, 12-10.

However, world ranked 84th Paey Fem Tan lost the first game but recovered well in time to defeat Yang Sun in four sets 5-11, 12-10, 11-8, 11-7.

Meanwhile, in the men's team event, Canada, Scotland, New Zealand and England today qualified for the last eight phase of the tournament and will now fight it out with India, Singapore, Nigeria and Australia who have already booked their berth in the quarterfinals yesterday.

Indian men padllers continued from where they left yesterday as they recorded a 3-0 victory over Bangladesh this morning.

Promising Anirban Nandi was the only player to drop a game against his less formidable Bangladeshi counterpart Mahbub Khondokoker Billah, while the hosts' top player Achanta Sharath Kamal and Patheek Mehta won their matches in straight sets.

Meanwhile, admitting their mistake, the organising committee secretary DR Choudhary has announced that they have amended the draw for the quarterfinals as it will now be conducted on on a league basis like the previous edition of the championship.

MORE UNI