City braces up for TT tourney

Vijayawada, Oct 3 (UNI) The city is gearing up to host the prestigious national ranking table tennis championship-2006, scheduled to commence at Dandamuri Rajagopal Municipal Indoor stadium here from tomorrow.

The five-day championship is being jointly organised by Andhra Pradesh Table Tennis Association (APTTA) and Krishna District Table Tennis Association (KDTTA) under the auspices of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI).

As many as 545 players from different states, Indian Railways, Petroleum Sports Control Board, All India Banks Sports Control Board, National Table Tennis Academy, Ajmer and Centre of Excellence, Kolkata, would take part in the event.

Seeded players G Jitendra, S Raman, Sourav Chakraborty, A Amal Raj, Omkar Toglekar, Pathik Metha from men's section, Paulomi Ghatak, Mouma Das, Montu Ghosh from women's section, across the country would vie for the title.

This is the first ranking tourney this season and Vijayawada is hosting the tourney for a second time, the first being in 2000.

Addressing a press conference here today, International Referee from Karnataka N V Raman, who would be officiating as Chief Referee for the championship said national players, Achanta Sharath Kamal, Soumyadeep Roy and Subajit Saha, would not take part in the championship, as they are representing the country at the International TT event being held at Spain.

Mr Raman said the TTFI has introduced a youth event for the first time in this championship for players under-21 players. He said the youth event was introduced primarily to bridge the gap for the players, who graduate from the under-17 and the senior level. The championship would also give a platform for the juniors to compete with seniors, he added On the first day of the tournament, qualifying rounds for all the events would be played and the main draws for all the events would commence from October 5, he said, adding eight new stag deluxe table tennis tables would be used. All the events would be held on knockout basis.

The coloured balls of Nittaku Company, Japan would be used in the Championship.

The finals of the sub-junior and youth events would be played on October 7 and the finals of the juniors and senior events would be played on October 8, he said.

The event carried a total prize money of Rs 3,50,000 to be distributed among the winners, runners up, losing semi-finalists and the losing quarter-finalists.

The State Bank of India (SBI) would sponsor the prize money, he added.

In the last National ranking held at Thiruvananthapuram, A Sharath Kamal from men's section and K Shamini from women's section bagged the titles.

UNI