UTT 2019: U Mumba produce all-round show to beat Puneri Paltan, jump to top of points table

New Delhi: U Mumba produced an all-round display to beat Puneri Paltan 9-6 in the Ultimate Table Tennis league here on Saturday. The win enabled U Mumba to jump to the top of the points table. [caption id=“attachment_7105971” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of U Mumba’s Manav Thakkar. Image courtesy: Twitter/@UltTableTennis[/caption] India’s Sutirtha Mukherjee and Manav Thakkar and their foreign stars, Kirill Gerassimenko (Kazakhstan) and Doo Hoi Kem (Hong Kong), comprehensively won their respective singles matches to leave Paltan gasping. U Mumba suffered their only defeat in the mixed doubles contest as Manav and Hoi Kem lost to Chih-Yuan-Ayhika Mukherjee. Sutirtha set the trend for the day, wiping out Ayhika’s challenge (11-7 6-11 11-5) with her aggressive approach and putting U Mumba ahead. Sutirtha won the first set with ease before Ayhika launched a comeback and levelled the scores in the second. In the decider, Sutirtha relied on speed and her jabs to force Ayhika into a series of errors. Manav then consolidated U Mumba’s lead, beating experienced Harmeet Desai 2-1 in the men’s singles. Manav, placed 156th in world rankings, did not let Harmeet settle down and raced to a 5-1 lead in the opening set, which he sealed 11-6. The 19-year-old adopted the same aggressive approach and picked up crucial points with his powerful smashes. His returns were quick, anticipation spot on as he pocketed the second game 11-8. Harmeet began to unnerve Manav in the third to take an early 6-2 lead which was enough to fetch him one point for Paltan. In the crucial mixed doubles, Taiwan’s Chuang Chih-Yuan protected Ayhika smartly to pull Paltan back into the contest. The U Mumba pair surged ahead 5-1 before Manav-Hoi Kem showed signs of a comeback. But Chih-Yuan proved to be too good, creating nice angles and working on his backhand flicks to clinch the first set 11-5. He was on song in the second too, wrapping it up 11-6. They couldn’t, however, complete the kill, allowing U Mumba to take another crucial point. Chih-Yuan suffered a brief hiccup in the reverse men’s singles match, losing the first set to Kirill Gerassimenko 7-11. He came back charged in the second though, racing away to a 6-0 lead. The third set, however, didn’t go his way, with Paltan’s Kirill defending amazingly well and retrieving everything that Chih-Yuan threw at him. In the end, though, Kirill prevailed to set the stage for world No 11 Hoi Kem. She wrapped up the tie in the first set itself. Hamilton plans early surprise for pole-sitter Verstappen in Hungary