In a thrilling Ultimate Table Tennis encounter, Sutirtha Mukherjee's exceptional women's singles performance propelled Dabang Delhi TTC to a decisive 3-2 victory over Kolkata ThunderBlades, overcoming Ankur Bhattacharjee's upset win against G Sathiyan.
Key Points
- Dabang Delhi TTC defeated Kolkata ThunderBlades 3-2 in a closely contested Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) tie.
- Sutirtha Mukherjee delivered a decisive 3-0 victory in women's singles, securing the overall win for Dabang Delhi.
- Young Ankur Bhattacharjee caused an upset by blanking senior Indian teammate G Sathiyan 3-0 in men's singles.
- The tie saw mixed results in earlier matches, with Youssef Abdelaziz winning for Delhi and Zeng Jian for Kolkata.
- Sathiyan and Maria Xiao won their mixed doubles match, but Bhattacharjee's individual performance was a highlight.
Ankur Bhattacharjee made the shushing gesture, and hopped on to the table after blanking his senior India teammate G Sathiyan, but Sutirtha Mukherjee's splendid showing gave Dabang Delhi TTC a 3-2 victory over Kolkata ThunderBlades in UTT here on Saturday.
The Asian Games-bound Sutirtha showed a far better game plan and execution than her women's doubles partner Ayhika, defeating her 3-0 (11-6, 11-2-, 11-7) to pull off a narrow victory for Delhi. Heading into the final match of the tie, Delhi were trailing 5-7 against Kolkata and needed a clean sweep in the women's singles match, which Sutirtha delivered in a commanding manner.
Decisive Women's Singles Performance
The two teams went head-to-head in the first two matches with the scoreline tied at 3-3, but a victory in the third match of mixed doubles for Delhi took them ahead by 5-4. In the first match, Delhi and Egypt player Youssef Abdelaziz recorded a 2-1 (6-11, 11-7, 11-4) win over Romania's Eduard Ionescu in men's singles. In the women's singles, Kolkata's Zeng Jian beat Maria Xiao 2-1 (11-3, 8-11, 11-9) to keep the tie evenly matched.
Bhattacharjee Upsets Sathiyan
Sathiyan paired up with Xiao to beat the Kolkata pair of Bhattacharjee and Zeng 2-1 (11-5, 7-11, 11-5) to keep Delhi ahead in the third match of mixed doubles. This was when an inspired Bhattacharjee turned the tables on Delhi with a fine display against Sathiyan, who will lead the Indian squad in the Asian Games. Forcing his senior into making several errors, Ankur rode on the confidence of winning the first game narrowly. But the 19-year-old Bhattacharjee grew in confidence to topple Sathiyan in the second and even as the latter fought back in the third game, the Kolkata player won the match 3-0 (11-10, 11-6, 11-10).
