January 12: Tamil Nadu's T Pradeepa caused an upset ousting fifth seeded Montu Ghosh (Railways) in a pre-quarterfinal match of the women's individual (open) event of the 60th Senior National table tennis championship this morning.Unseeded Pradeepa went into the lead straight away taking the first game while ghosh, a semi-finalist in the jammu nationals last year, came back to clinch the second. Despite surrendering meekly in the fourth, Pradeepa kept her nerves and took the decider without much difficulty.She will now meet junior national champion and fourth seeded Poulumi Ghatak in the quarter-finals. Besides the two, defending champion Kasturi Chakraborty (Rly), top seeded NR Indu (TN) and second seeded Mouma Das too had an easy time.Third seeded Anindita Chakraborty (Rly) overcame a stiff challenge from V Bhuvaneshwari (PSCB) before winning 20-22, 19-21, 21-14, 24-22, 21-19.In the men's section, which saw four seeded players crashing out in the second round yesterday, the first eight seeds ledby defending champion Chetan Baboor moved into the quarter-finals without much ado.G Deepak Kumar of Tamil Nadu, who scalped former national champion and 11th seeded Sriram (PSCB), was halted by sixth seeded Deepak Thukral (Pun).
