Table tennis: Top seed Kawle eases her way into semifinals

Top-seed Charvi Kawle defeated Romi Desai 11-2 11-5 11-5 11-5 in the quarterfinals of the Amit Rathi memorial All-Mumbai ranking table tennis tournament at Juhu Vile Parle Gymkhana Club on Tuesday.

The 17-year-old Kawle, who is the favourite to win the youth category tournament, broke no sweat against her opponent as she never looked likely to drop even a single game. The first was facile win for her as she missed a couple of shots to allow her opponent to get on to the score board.

After losing the first two games, Desai took lead for the first time as she went 3-1 up in the third. However, she could not hold on to it as Kawle scored from a number of smashes, which she was unable to deal with. Kawle, a central railway player, was India number three last year in the under-17 category. This year as she has moved to the under-21 category and starts afresh, she said that she will be looking to make her mark in the upcoming west zone national ranking tournament in Thane next month.

Kawle added that the next big tournament where she would be representing India is the world junior championship, which will be held in Bahrain in December. 

“The Worlds are an under-18 event, so I am eligible to play in them. India qualified for the tournament after our performance in the Asian junior championship in Delhi in July.

“Initially, only four teams used to go but this year there are five. We lost in the quarters against China and then in the classification encounters we defeated Singapore and Hong Kong to finish fifth. Our team comprises of four players: Mallika Bhandarkar (Maharashtra), Manika Batra (Delhi), Reetrisha (Tamil Nadu) and I,” she said.