Bengal boys favourites as 87th National TT Championships begin
A total of 32 teams will battle for top honours when the boys U-15 team competition of the 87th Inter-State Sub-Junior and Cadet National Table Tennis Championships begins in Gandhidham on Monday.
West Bengal players arrive as clear favourites, topping the cumulative standings with 600 points and carrying the weight of expectations in the absence of a weakened PSPB Academy, the defending champions.
The Bengal squad features a strong core group in Aditya Das, Rishaab Chattopadhyay, Himon Kumar Mondal, and Rudranil Jana. Tamil Nadu (390 points) and Maharashtra (315) follow as the closest challengers, fielding competitive line-ups that could test Bengal’s consistency during the event.
Tamil Nadu will rely on the combination of J N Sanjey Arwindh, K Akshay Bhushan, Akash Rajavelu, and Tanmay Raghavan, while Maharashtra’s hopes rest on Prateek Tulsani, Nilay Pattekar, Param Bhiwandkar, and Aarav Vora.
Among the most closely watched sides, however, will be the hosts, Gujarat, who are placed fourth with 182 points but bring significant promise through their line-up of Vivaan Dave, Dev Bhatt, Dwij Bhalodia, and Aarva Singhvi.
Despite its legacy, the Academy team finds itself down the order in seventh spot, with a relatively new roster comprising Sathish Karmeghakannan, Viren Patil, and Dhrityaman Pandey, and may find it tough to match the depth of the top-ranked sides this time.
The competition format sees all 32 teams divided into eight groups for the initial phase, with seedings determined by the combined national ranking points of each team’s top two players.
Alongside the team event, matches in the youth boys U-11 and U-15 categories will run concurrently, with the U-15 doubles event scheduled on the second day and qualification rounds beginning on the third.
Organisers and the competition department aim to conclude the boys U-15 programme by the fourth day, after which the focus will shift to the girls’ team events and qualification rounds in the U-11 and U-13 singles categories, following a transition day.
