Goa crowned Ultimate Table Tennis champions

Goa Challengers ensured Chennai Lions became the latest victim of the league’s curse of the defending champions being denied a second consecutive title.

In a contest worthy of a final, Goa posted a thrilling 8-7 win over Chennai to lift the Season 4 Ultimate Table Tennis title at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune on Sunday.

With momentum swinging both ways in the first three matches, the turning point for Goa came when Spain’s Alvaro Robles swatted aside the fancied Sharath Kamal 3-0 in the reverse men’s singles. This saw Goa taking an overall lead of 7-5. The pressure now fell on the two ladies in the reverse women’s singles. While Chennai’s Sutirtha Mukherjee had an uphill task of winning the remaining three games, Goa’s Reeth Tennison needed just one to gift her team the trophy.

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Sutirtha, the more experienced of the two, lived up to the expectations by claiming the first two games for the scoreboard to be tied 7-7. The young Reeth, debuting at the UTT, held her nerve to claim the last game of the fifth match for Goa to emerge as victors.

Earlier, Goa’s bold decision of trusting Harmeet Desai paid dividends as the Indian stunned Chennai’s Benedikt Duda 2-1 in the opening men's singles tie.

The slender lead was immediately equalised when Chennai’s Yangzi Liu posted a 2-1 win over Suthasini Sawettabut in the women’s singles.

The crowd who turned out in good numbers were treated to a high-intensity mixed doubles clash between Chennai’s Sharath Kamal/ Yangzi and Desai/ Suthasini. Just as the Chennai pair looked well on their way to grab all the three games on offer, the Goan duo stole the third after losing the first two.

Results (final): Goa Challengers bt Chennai Lions 8-7 (Harmeet Desai bt Benedikt Duda 2-1; Suthasini Sawettabut lt to Yangzi Liu 1-2; Harmeet/Suthasini lt to Sharath/Yangzi 1-2; Alvaro Robles bt Sharath Kamal 3-0; Reeth Tennison bt Sutirtha Mukherjee 2-1).