Sanil, Sushmit survive, Nikhil exits in first round of TT meet

Thane, Oct 30 (IANS) Tamil Nadus Nikhil Suresh was the lone seed who became a first-round victim in the draw on the second day of the UTT National Ranking (West Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the Sulochana Devi Singhania School here on Wednesday.But for the 16th seed player, most other seeds went through the motions while four seeded players barely survived to move into the round of 32.Nikhil, in any situation, should have simply walked into the second round, but on the day went down tamely to unseeded Aniket Sen Chowdhary as the Bengal paddler made it all look easy as he beat the Tamil Nadu player 11-7, 11-7, 11-7 11-2 to earn a meeting with LIC's Sougata Sarkar. Sougata, too, scored a straight games triumph over Gourang Shakreja of Haryana.But in the real battle for the Round 32 spots, second-seed Sanil Shetty and third-seed Sushmit Srriram had a harrowing time before overcoming their rivals Ali Mohammad of Telangana and Shubham Ambre of the Railways, respectively. Both won their matches with an identical margin of 4-2.
--IANS dm/kk/bg