Despite World No. 14 Marcos Freitas' win over Soumyajit Ghosh, Shaze inch closer to final
Dabang Smashers' Marcos Freitas in action against Shaze Challengers' Soumyajit Ghosh during the second semi-final of the Ultimate Table Tennis at the National Sports Club of India in Worli, Mumbai, on Saturday. Pic/Suresh Karkera
Dabang Smashers' Marcos Freitas in action against Shaze Challengers' Soumyajit Ghosh during the second semi-final of the Ultimate Table Tennis at the National Sports Club of India in Worli, Mumbai, on Saturday. Pic/Suresh Karkera
Shaze Challengers lead 8-4 against Dabang Smashers TTC in the second semi-final of the inaugural CEAT Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) League on Saturday.
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In the semi-final, the team, which scores 14 points first, is declared as the winner. Five more matches are to be still played. The winners will meet Falcons TTC in the summit clash to be played today.
Early setback
In the opening game of the tie, World No. 14 Marcos Freitas won the first two games against Soumyajit Ghosh 11-7, 11-6 in the men's singles to give Dabang Smashers a 2-0 lead.
World No. 85 Ghosh rallied back by clinching the third game 11-9 making it 1-2 in favour of Dabang Smashers.
Next up were women's singles where World No. 9 Han Ying of Germany, who was unbeaten in the tournament so far, outclassed Madhurika Patkar of Dabang Smashers 11-4, 11-6, 11-7 to take Challengers slight ahead at 4-2.
In the mixed doubles, Anthony Amalraj and Tetyana Bilenko of Dabang Smashers took the first game 11-8 against Soumyajit and Petrissa Solja of Shaze Challengers, who came back and bagged the second and third game 11-7, 11-5 to extend their team's overall lead to 6-3.
In the fourth tie Croatian Andrej Gacina of Shaze Challengers got the better of Ukrainian and World No. 28 Koi Lei of Dabang Smashers 11-9 in the opening game to make it 7-3 for Challengers.
But Lei showed his class to make it 4-7 for Smashers taking the second game 11-6.
One-sided affair However, the third game was one sided with the Croatian taking it 11-7 by which Challengers extended their lead to 8-4.
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