Soumyadeep, Subhajit advance in Liebherr World TT Championship

Zagreb, Croatia, May 21 (UNI) Indian men paddlers had a mixed fortune at the cqualifying rounds of the Liebherr 2007 World Table Tennis Championship here today, as both Soumyadeep Roy and Subhajit Saha easliy qualified for the Round of 128, while promising Anirban Nandi and Prateek Mehta could not live up to their expectations.

Soumyadeep got a walk over against Boubacar Diongue of Senegal in his first group match, but had to toil a little bit to overcome Kiwi Simon Wallace 11-4, 9-11, 11-5, 11-6, 11-8 in the second match.

However, unlike Soumyadeep, Subhajit had a comfortable outing as he thrashed Selman Efovic of Montenegro 11-4, 11-3, 11-7, 11-1 in his first match. Later, in his second outing of the day, the Indian overpowered Uzbekistan's Timur Shyriev 11-7, 11-1, 11-4, 11-7 to book a berth in the Round of 128.

The other two Indian paddlers, young Anirban Nandi and Prateek Mehta failed to get past the qualifying round.

Both Anirban and Mehta showed promise in their first matches of the qualifying round, but later failed to carry on the momentum.

Though Anirban thrashed Ricardo Tentoni of San Marino in straight sets 11-6, 11-6, 11-4, 11-4 in his first match, later he bowed down to El-Sayed Lashin of Egypt 11-8, 15-17, 5-11, 8-11, 9-11.

His compatriot Prateek Mehta also won the first match easily against Musbah Mohamed El-Arbi of Libya but later went down fighting against Guatemala's Jose Miguel Ramirez Marin 11-9, 15-13, 7-11, 9-11, 5-11, 8-11.

Meanwhile, India's top paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal has been given a direct entry into the main draw following his recent climb in the top 100 in world rankings. He will play Lujan Blaszczuk of Poland in the opening round of main draw on Wednesday.

Women's qualifying round matches will be held tomorrow.

UNI