Vadodara, Jan 3 Vivaan Dave and Naisha Rewaskar maintained their composure in a tense decider that went into extra points, upsetting top seeds Aditya Das and Ankolika Chakraborty to reach the U-15 mixed doubles final at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Youth Contender held at the SAMA Indoor Sports Complex on Saturday.
Vivaan and Naisha narrowly defeated the top seeds with scores of 13-11, 5-11, 11-7, 5-11, 23-21. They advanced to the final against fellow players Reyansh Jalan and Tanishka Kalbhairav, who won their semifinal match against Sanjay Jagdish and Myraa Sangelkar with scores of 11-3, 15-13, 11-7.
This marks the second year of the WTT Youth Contender in Vadodara, featuring competitions for U-11 to U-19 categories with a total of 226 players.
Meanwhile, top seeds Abhinandh Pradhivadhi and Ananya Muralidharan lived up to their top billing by securing a spot in the U-19 mixed doubles final against Sarthak Arya and Syndrela Das.
In the semifinals, Abhinandh and Ananya beat Ritvik Gupta and Ahona Roy with scores of 9-11, 14-12, 11-7, 11-8, while Sarthak and Syndrela halted the strong performance of Sahil Rawat and Hardee Patel, winning 11-6, 12-10, 5-11, 11-5.
The most exciting match, which kept spectators on the edge of their seats, occurred at the very end of the morning session. Vivaan and Naisha displayed their fighting spirit right from the start by coming back from 5-8 down, saving a game point, and then winning the opening game.
Both pairs shared the spoils over the next three games, setting up a thrilling decider.
It seemed like Aditya and Ankolika would win the decider as they opened up a 4-0 lead and then had three match points at 10-7.
Vivaan and Naisha not only saved those three match points but also maintained their composure to level the score each time their opponents faced a match point, eventually winning four consecutive points to conclude the match.
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