Vadodara, Jan 8
The 13-year-old Tanishka Kalbhairav made the most of the wild card in qualifying and topped Group 5 with an all-win record, and made it to the women's singles main draw, while Parth Magar, Jash Modi, and Shankhadip Das upset higher-ranked opponents to make it to the men's singles main draw in the WTT Feeder Series 2026, presented by Sports Authority of Gujarat, at the SAMA Indoor Sports Complex in Vadodara on Thursday.
The inaugural edition of the WTT Feeder Series in Vadodara is being hosted by the Table Tennis Association of Baroda and implemented by UTT.
In the women's qualifying round, Tanishka had won two matches in her group on Wednesday and was up against Evana Thapa of Nepal in the final match on Thursday. The Belgavi-born paddler was on a roll, beating Evana 11-9, 11-6, 12-10 to top the group.
Also making it to the main draw were Selena Selvakumar, Anusha Kutumbale, Sampada Bhiwandkar, Ananya Muralidharan, and Pritha Vartikar.
In the men's qualifying knock-out match, Parth Magar defeated Mehan Senthil 12-10, 15-13, 13-15, 11-8. Jash thrashed Sriram Sivam 11-5, 11-6, 11-6, while Shankhdip got the better of Kumar Harshit 11-8, 11-7, 9-11, 11-8.
In the women's doubles qualifying, Kavya Bhaskar and Pranati Paramesh got the better of Senhora Dsouza and Naisha Rewaskar 11-13, 11-7, 11-5, 11-9 to qualify. All the other three pairs qualified directly as they had a bye in the qualifying round.
In the mixed doubles qualifying, top seeds Raegan Albuquerque and Suhana Saini had to work hard to beat Sriram Sivan and Ananya Muralidharan 5-11, 11-9, 11-9, 9-11, 12-10 while second seed Abhinandh Pradhivadhi and Nithya Mani ended the run of Dhairya Parmar and Anusha Kutumbale 11-0, 11-0, 11-0.
Earlier, Sarthak Arya and Hardee Patel upset third seeds Snehit Suravajjula and Sayali Wani 5-11, 11-9, 11-9, 9-11, 12-10 to advance to the second round of the mixed doubles qualifying, while Anusha Kutumbale upset the experienced Nithya Mani in Group 2 of women's singles qualifying to stay in hunt for a knockout spot in the WTT Feeder Series 2026 on Wednesday.
In the women's singles group stage, Anusha kept her nerves in the decider after Nithya had made a strong comeback from two games down to win 11-5, 11-4 9-11, 8-11, 13-11 in Group 2. Nithya had beaten Sammridhi Banik 12-10, 11-9, 8-11, 11-9 in her other group match and Anusha will have to win her second match on Thursday to make it to the knock-out stage.
- IANS
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