PBG Pune Jaguars made a remarkable comeback to down U Mumba TT 9-6 on points and open their Ultimate Table Tennis Season 6 campaign on a rousing note in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
In the opening match of the day, World No 71 Lillian Bardet of France displayed fast hands and complete control over his shots, especially forehand, to stun 39th ranked Alvaro Robles of Spain 2-1 (11-1, 11-4, 8-11) in first men's singles to hand U Mumbai the initial advantage..
World No.12 Bernadette Szocs of Romania defeated world no. 48 Dina Meshref of Egypt 2-1 (5-11, 11-10, 11-9) for U Mumba.
Despite the loss, Meshref fought valiantly against her higher-ranked opponent but eventually fell short as Scozs used her booming smashes from both forehand and backhand to great effect when it mattered most.
The Indo-Egyptian pair of young Anirban Ghosh and Meshref then joined hands and prevailed over Indo-Romanian pair of Akash Pal and Scozs 2-1 (7-11, 11-7, 11-10) in fiercely contested mixed doubles contest.
Anirban Ghosh then prevailed over Akash Pal 2-1 (11-6, 10-11, 11-16) in the reverse men's singles match to level the scores of the contest for Pune Jaguars.
With both the level at 6-6 points after four matches, the women's singles match between U Mumba's Swastika Ghosh and Pune Jaguars' Reeth Rishya turned out to be decider, where the latter came out victorious.
Reeth defeated Swastika 3-0 (11-9, 11-10, 11-6) to take Pune Jaguars home.
In the league stage of UTT league, a game is won when a player scores first 11 points, with a golden point used deciding games that are tied at 10-10.
A team wins a tie by winning the most games. At the league stage, a team wins a tie by winning at least eight out of the 15 total games.