Swastika Ghosh wins medal in Oman
The 16-year-old paddler from Navi Mumbai wins bronze for India in the junior girls category.
Navi Mumbai girl Swastika Ghosh came up with an impressive performance to corner bronze medal in the Oman Junior and Cadet TT Open played in Muscat. Kavya Sree Baskar from Chennai also claimed a bronze medal for India.
Swastika, who was part of the silver medal-winning team in the tournament, took her form into the junior girls’ singles as well. She remained unbeaten in the group stages, picking up six points from her three matches.
She was awarded a bye in the round of 16 to make it to the quarterfinals round. She beat Wan-Hsuan Lee in the quarters 4-3 to advance into the medal round. She took on the talented Yi-Chen Hsu of Chinese Taipei, however, she went down 1-4 to settle for the bronze medal.
The Kharghar girl was also part of India A team in the Junior Girls’ event which was played in a round-robin format. Swastika and Anargya Manjunath collected a total of seven points to finish second on the table to earn a silver medal, courtesy their three wins from four matches. Their 2-3 loss to eventual champions Chinese Taipei cost them the top spot and the gold.
Kavya Sree also had a good run in the tournament, which is part of the ITTF Junior Circuit Premium, remaining invincible in the group stage. She continued the momentum into the knockout stages too, scoring a comprehensive 3-0 win over Rinad El-Hasani of Jordan in the round of 16 before beating Yi-Tian Yeh of Taipei 3-0 to make it to the semis.
However, she stumbled at this stage and lost 1-3 against the eventual champion Pu-Syuan Cheng of Taipei in the Cadet Singles to be content with the bronze medal.
The 16-year-old Swastika won silver recently in the junior category of the UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships (East Zone) in Howrah. She lost to city mate Diya Chitale in the final. Diya was in great form and she outperformed Swastika 4-1 to corner the gold medal while Swastika settled for silver. Earlier this year, she had also won silver in the junior girl's category of the North Zone UTT National Ranking Table Tennis Championships in Sonipat.
The talented paddler, who trains at Ramsheth Thakur Public School TT, hall was part of team India that won gold at the South Asian Table Tennis Championship. She also represented the country in ITTF Belgium, Portugal and Spanish Open.