UTT 2024: Goa Challengers pips U Mumba to keep semifinal hopes alive

We are all familiar with the story of the hare and the tortoise. In a race to settle who’s faster, the tortoise, one of the slowest animals on land, calmly trudged to the finish ahead of its furry mate, who decided to squeeze in a snooze after getting a considerable head start.

The real world can often be far removed from how it is presented in fables. And this is something Quadri Aruna would concur with even though his efforts went in vain as U Mumba went down narrowly to Athlead Goa Challengers 7-8 during an Ultimate Table Tennis tie at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai. The Challengers will now hope for Puneri Paltan Table Tennis to snatch eight or fewer games from Chennai Lions and for Jaipur Patriots to stun Ahmedabad SG Pipers by a margin of at least 10-5.

In the opening game of the tie, Aruna served first to Athlead Goa Challengers skipper Harmeet Desai, who is fresh off representing India at the Paris Olympics. And straightaway, Harmeet seemed to have gone on the defensive, countering the World No. 20’s fierce topspin with backhanded nudges. The Nigerian got off the blocks 11-7.

Harmeet added depth to his serves in the second game, going longer than usual. That Aruna was taking longer to recover his stance in between successive forehand strokes than he would have if playing from the backhand worked in favour of the 31-year-old as he drew level with an 11-4 scoreline.

Aruna hit top speed in the third game. To the extent that a few more drives would have perhaps seen smoke emanating from the table. He raced to a 6-1 lead and this is the point he thought he could lay back and lounge a bit. Harmeet pounced at the opportunity with open arms. He pulled back his serves, pitching it shorter, slower and at the net. And as Aruna instinctively lunged forward to send it back, Harmeet flicked it to the backline across the table. The pattern continued until it all came down to the golden point. Aruna, with a service advantage, lured Harmeet with a loosener, which the Indian pushed long. In what was a photo finish, the slow and steady almost won the race.

Manav goes down, Xiao bags first win

In the other men’s singles fixture, Mumba skipper Manav Thakkar lost his first match of the season, against the experienced Italian Mihai Bobocica. The lob, Manav’s ally on Friday against Achanta Sharath Kamal, became his adversary on matchday 12. The Gujarat paddler failed to pick the spin on his opponent’s shot to fumble returns. The cookie crumbled when he failed to pick up points off his backhand as well.

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Meanwhile, Mumba’s Maria Xiao bucked the dismal trend, winning her first singles fixture of UTT 2024 against Yangzi Liu. After the Australian took the first game, Xiao not only readjusted her service, using up more of the table, but she also chose to be more reactionary. With a golden point in the offing, Xiao decided to play with her opponent’s mind as she paused while loading up on her serve, before rebooting to unleash the pendulum, a forehand sidespin service, that took down Liu.

With Harmeet and Liu winning two games in mixed doubles and the scoreboard reading 6-all, the responsibility fell on Yashaswini Ghorpade’s shoulders to win the last fixture against an out-of-form Sutirtha Mukherjee. The U-19 national champion changed her stance to stay a few steps behind the table on multiple occasions to deal with the small pimples on the Asian Games medallist’s forehand. Sutirtha did try to dictate terms with a frequent change of pace, but an alert Yashaswini saw through the ploy to hand her side the much-needed win.