Pooja Sahasrabudhe's victory at West Zone National Ranking Tournament Thane:

Pooja in action during West Zone National Ranking Tournament Pooja Sahasrabudhe claimed the title at the Thane National Ranking Table Tennis Tournament.  In an exciting all ONGC final, Pooja beat fancied Madhurika Patkar 4 games to 3. Earlier in the Semi Final, she defeated K.Shamini in an identical score line of 4-3.

A. Amalraj, Madhurika Patkar, Pooja Sahasrabuddhe & Divya Deshpande excel in East Zone National Ranking Table Tennis Tournament at Siliguri.

A.Amalraj and Madhurika Patkar clinched the men's & women's titles respectively at the East Zone National Ranking Tournament held at Siliguri (North Bengal) from Oct 24-19, 2013 while Pooja Sahasrabudhe went down fighting in the semi-final.

Amalraj beat Sourav Saha, a scholarship player from ONGC, 4-0(11-8, 11-7, 14-12, 11-7) in the quarter final & then went on to trounce Subhajit Saha from Oil India Ltd, 4-0 (11-9, 11-3, 15-13, 11-5) in the semi-final. The win over experienced Saha is noteworthy considering he was a National Champion, Commonwealth Gold Medalist and Arjuna Awardee. In the final, Amalraj beat Soumyajit Ghosh, who represented India in London Olympics, in 6 games (15-13, 11-7, 5-11, 7-11, 11-8, 11-8).  The win was a milestone for Amalraj who finally put it across Ghosh, the current national champion after 10 earlier defeats including a very disappointing loss last year during the Olympics qualification.

Meanwhile in the women's category Madhurika Patkar, the no 5 seed, breezed past Mouma Das in straight sets (11-7, 11-2, 11-4, 11-7). Patkar wrapped up the match in 20 minutes and during a post-match interview had this to say, "I am very happy today, Mouma is a far more experienced player & winning against her always requires extra energy, different strategy and hard work because she never gives up.  Usually our match stretches to 7 games, but today winning against her so easily is unbelievable."

In one semi-final Patkar beat fellow ONGCian & 12th seed Divya Deshpande in a gruelling seven game encounter (11-7, 11-4, 5-11, 15-13, 5-11, 8-11, 11-9) while in the other semi-final ONGCian Pooja Sahasrabudhe the no 2 seed, went down against Mouma Das in seven games. It is a matter of pride that out of the 4 semi-finalists in the women section, 3 were from ONGC.

Deshpande caused a few upsets enroute to the semi-final and the highlight of them being the win over top seeded K.Shamini in the quarter-final while the other was against the no 8 seed & fellow team mate Mousumi Paul. The win against Shamini proved Deshpande's grit as she came back from 1-3 behind and kept fighting till the last point and ultimately won the match.

Congrats to all players and GC-Table Tennis Borthakur on this remarkable feat.

Corporate Sports Division