Indian girls win gold in Slovak Junior Open TT

Promising paddler Sutirtha Mukherjee led Indian girls to a gold medal finish while the boys had to settle for a silver in the team championship of the Slovak Junior Open at Senec, Slovakia. Indian girls defeated Serbia ‘A’ 3-2 in a close summit-clash while Czech Republic ‘A’ boys brushed aside Indian challenge 3-1 to claim gold in the boy’s event. Sutirtha first defeated Aneta Maksuti 3-2 and then went onto beat Anna Fenyvesi by identical margin in the final match played yesterday. [caption id=“attachment_833371” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Indian girls defeated Serbia ‘A’ 3-2 in a close summit-clash while Czech Republic ‘A’ boys brushed aside Indian challenge 3-1 to claim gold in the boy’s event. Getty Images[/caption] Earlier, India got off to a good start with Manika Batra staging a great comeback against Anna Fenyvesi in the first match. Despite losing the opening two games Manika won the first match 7-11 3-11 11-4 11-4 15-13. Reeth Tennison did not face much challenge from Serbian Viktoria Truzsinszki as she comfortably beat her 3-1 to give India a 2-1 lead. The match was forced into decider after Manika was floored 0-3 by Aneta Maksuti. The final duel was decided in a cliff-hanger which the 15-year-old Sutirtha won 8-11 11-9 8-11 11-2 16-14 against Fenyvesi to win the team championship. In the boys’s event, Sudhanshu Grover and Abhishek Yadav were comprehensively beaten by David Reitspies and Jakub Seibert in their respective singles matches. However, Rohit Rajasekhar gave India a glimmer of hope when he beat Tibor Pavlic of Czech Republic 3-2. But in the reverse singles match, Abhishek was tamed by David 1-3, with Indian team settling for a silver in the boys event. PTI