Vadodara, Aug. 12 -- Jammu and Kashmir paddler Ritvik Gupta in a stunning performance ousted top seed Sarthak Arya of Odisha 3-2 in a high voltage pre-quarterfinal at the Youth Boys Under-17 draw in the first UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships here today.
The surprising win for the 8th seed at the SAMA Indoor Stadium set the tone for an afternoon in which several higher-ranked players struggled to contain hungry challengers determined to rewrite the script.
In contrast, the U-17 Girls' draw stayed truer to the seedings. Top two seeds Syndrela Das and Divyanshi Bhowmick, along with two others among the top eight, navigated their pre-quarterfinal hurdles to keep their title quests alive.
Ritvik began brightly, surrendered the ...