UTT 2024: Sharath Kamal’s masterclass keeps Chennai Lions in contention for semifinals

The home team, Chennai Lions, didn’t have anything to lose. Neither did Puneri Paltan Table Tennis. But both sides had everything to play for on Tuesday. A semifinal spot in Ultimate Table Tennis, after all, was up for grabs.

And the host almost did it, with an unheard-of scoreline of 12-3, that somehow keeps it in the race by the skin of its teeth. It would now need the Jaipur Patriots to beat the Ahmedabad SG Pipers by a margin of at least 9-6 in the last league tie.

In their last fixture of the group stage, the Lions needed to win 13 of their 15 games to guarantee themselves a spot in the final-four. The Paltan were required to bag 10 games. Even nine would have sufficed, provided Joao Monteiro and Co. could win three of their five matches.

The occasion was not lost on anyone, including the audio mixers at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium. Home captain Achanta Sharath Kamal was greeted with thunderous applause from the stands as the speakers belted out “ Vathi Coming”, a peppy Tamil number from a megastar Vijay blockbuster.  Vathi is the Tamil word for Master.

Make way for the Master

Sharath had his task cut out, going up against an undefeated Ankur Bhattacharjee, who had dropped only two games in the ongoing season.

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Ankur had the advantage of serving first from left to right. But he fumbled the reverse pendulum and let the ping-pong ball clatter into the net to help Sharath open his account off a freebie. It was a rare error from Ankur, who had the highest success rate (64 per cent) when serving this season, going into the contest. The 17-year-old consistently tried to drag Sharath away from his corner but failed miserably, conceding the first game 7-11.

Ankur needed to act fast as the partisan crowd, an overwhelming majority of it school-goers, continued to raise the decibel levels. In the second game, Ankur kept imparting added revs to the ball to trick Sharath into misplacing his returns. But Sharath reminded one of yet another calm customer in the yellow threads of Chennai, albeit from another sport, as he coolly kept slotting into the corners of the opponent’s end.

Then came what could be called the rally of the season. Sidespin, underspin and forehand topspins, Ankur tried it all while playing from three steps behind the table. But Sharath had the last laugh. The tie was already in the bag.

Ankur was reduced to a shadow of his former self by the third game. As Sharath claimed a runaway lead, one could see Ankur’s shoulders droop. He could only manage to bag two points in the last game. The Master had just delivered a lecture on 101 table tennis.

Action replay

In what was a replay of last year’s senior National Championship final, Poymantee Baisya took on Ayhika Mukherjee. This was the perfect occasion for Ayhika to exact her revenge. But it wasn’t to be.

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Poymantee, who was yet to win a match this season, sprung a surprise when it mattered the most. With pinpoint returns angled into Ayhika’s forehand, not the strongest of the Naihati-born paddler’s weapons, the first and third game trickled down to the golden point. But two forehand topspin returns ensured the bagel was baked and ready in the oven.

Ayhika, who could claim only seven per cent of her points on the forehand on matchday 13, swatted the ball aside with her paddle in frustration.

Sakura Mori and Sharath combined for the mixed doubles. It seemed impossible for the Chennai-born superstar to put one foot wrong as the duo claimed the first game 11-3 against the duo of Anirban Ghosh and Natalia Bajor, which has won a solitary match in the league. Although the Paltan pair improved by a fair extent in the last two games, Chennai had effected yet another clean sweep.

Lions took the first hit in the second game of the men’s singles as Jules Rolland found himself scampering across either ends of the table despite the absence of a long rally (eight-plus shots) in the fixture. Paltan’s Joao Monteiro won the second round 11-2 but Rolland eventually rediscovered his lost momentum in the last game to turn the tables.

By the time Sakura took to the table, the equation didn’t seem insurmountable at all. She had to win 2-1 to see Chennai through to the knockouts. The undefeated paddler from the Land of the Rising Sun, however, could only win one of the three games. Despite the loss, she may have just made sure the sun doesn’t set on her side early this season.