Services bid adieu in style

reach the knock-out phase as dark horses Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh replaced them. Indian Railways will take on Madhya Pradesh, who emerged runners-up in Group C while last year’s runners-up Kerala will lock horns with Uttar Pradesh in the last eight. Tamil Nadu will have to face Punjab.

In the distaff side, hosts Andhra Pradesh will in probability sign off their campaign in the quarter-finals itself as they face defending champions Indian Railways. Kerala will play West Bengal while Punjab and Tamil Nadu take on Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra respectively.

Indian Railways rested their main attacker P Venkateswar Rao for the inconsequential match against Services. Later, during the course of the match, their coach N Srinivas Reddy sent in M Abubacker, AC Jayachandran, S Dinesh Kumar and Rajesh Tiwari. On the other hand, it was a bitter pill for Services not to have qualified for the knock-out. They played with vengeance today cutting down erratic spiking and setting up good blocking against off-colour Railway spikers. Skipper Premjit and BP Aman shattered the Railway defence relatively easily. Services won the first two sets and appeared to be winning the match in straight sets. But Railways managed to win the set only to lose the fourth.

Results: Men: Kerala bt Karnataka 15-3, 15-12, 15-8; Punjab bt Orissa 15-7, 15-2, 15-11; Delhi bt Rajasthan 15-4, 13-15, 15-2, 15-11; Indian Railways lost to Services 11-15, 4-15, 15-11, 11-15; Tamil Nadu bt West Bengal 15-3, 15-4, 15-8; Andhra Pradesh bt Bihar 15-7, 15-2, 15-13; HP bt Gujarat 15-12, 15-1, 3-15, 15-11; Maharashtra bt J & K 15-3, 15-10, 14-16, 15-6.
Women: Tamil Nadu bt Delhi 15-4, 15-5, 15-2; AP bt UP 15-6, 15-11, 9-15, 15-10; Punjab bt Chandigarh 15-8, 15-8, 15-7; West Bengal bt Karnataka 15-6, 15-11, 15-10; Maharashtra bt HP 16-14, 5-15, 15-3, 15-3; Rajasthan lost to Orissa 8-15, 9-15, 8-15; MP bt Pondicherry 15-2, 15-5, 15-8; Indian Railways bt Maharashtra 15-1, 15-5, 15-13.