Anirban, Pathik make it to main draw in Chile Open table tennis

Santiago, Apr 19 (UNI) Indian paddlers put up a superb show in the qualification round with almost all of them, both men and women, making it to the main draw of the Liebherr Chile Open ITTF Pro Tour event here.

Among men, Anirban Nandi, Pathik Mehta and Jubin Kumar qualified for the main round and will now join Achanta Sharath Kamal, Soumyadeep Saha and Subhajit Roy who have been given direct entry to the main draw. Only Amalraj Anthony failed to qualify.

Twenty-four year old Nandi was the star attraction and played with superb control to get the better of higher-rated opponents.

Nandi will now play Zhang Peng of Canada, Pathik will be up against Alfredo Carneros of Spain, while Jubin has been pitted against Robert Gardos of Austria in the main round.

Top Indian men paddler Sharath Kamal takes on Manoel Bissaco of Brazil, Soumyadeep Roy will be up against Pablo Tabachink of Argentina and Subhajit Saha will play Gustavo Tsuboi of Brazil in the opening match of main round.

Meanwhile, all the Indian women who played the qualifying round made it to the main draw.

Mousumi Das, Shamini Kumaresan, Madhurika Patkar and Kasturi Chakraborty join Poulomi Ghatak and Mouma Das who have been given straight entry to main draw.

In women's opening main draw, Mousumi will play Midori Ito of Japan, Kumaresan will face Maria Paulina Vega of Chile and Kasturi will face Se Rom Shim of South Korea.

Poulomi Ghatak takes on Ang Cho Rong of South Korea while Mouma Das will cross swords with Karin Sako of Brazil.

Anirban Nandi defeated powerful Dimeys Gongora of Cuba, a man who consistently reaches the latter stages of tournaments in Latin America, in a marathon seven-game encounter 15-17, 4-11, 11-5, 7-11, 11-6, 11-7, 11-8.

He then accounted for the talented local challenger Matias Contreras 11-9, 11-4, 11-2, 11-3 to emerge group winner and book a place for the main draw.

Pathik topped his group with an easy 11-6, 11-4, 11-3, 11-2 win over Raul Quezade of Chile and then earned a walk over in his second group league match against Marcus Bermudez of Equador.

Jubin had no problem in accounting for another local challenger Salas Guillermo 11-4, 11-7, 11-2, 11-3 but went down fighting to Madrid Marcos of Mexico 10-12, 11-7, 8-11, 9-11, 8-11.

In women's qualifying round, Kumaresan defeated local challenger Blanca Duran 11-4, 11-9, 11-4, 11-4 and got walked over another Chilean Katherine Low.

Mousumi was victorious over two Chileans Judith Morales 11-5, 11-3, 11-3, 11-6 and Giovanna Gomes 11-6, 11-6, 11-5, 11-7.

Kasturi also beat two local challengers Daniela Reinero 11-7, 9-11, 16-14, 11-5, 10-12, 11-7 and Karen Rojas 11-7, 11-2, 11-6, 11-7.

Madhurika walked over Laura Rodroguez of Chile before beating Cynthia Paulin of Canada 11-7, 11-8, 11-3, 12-10.

UNI