Ankita in World TT quarterfinals

Bahrain: Indian paddler Ankita Das continued making waves in the World Junior Table Tennis Championships as she rallied to beat Chinese Taipei`s Hsien-Tzu Cheng to enter the quarterfinals of the event on Saturday.

Ankita beat Cheng 8-11, 15-13, 10-12, 11-8, 11-7, 11-4 in the pre-quarterfinal match. Ankita is now slated to meet world number 10 Ruochen Gu of China in the quarterfinals. Ranked 35, Ankita, who made the main draw through qualification, had caused a major upset yesterday when she downed third-seed Romanian Bernadette Szocs 4-3 (11-6 11-9 2-11 7-11 7-11 11-8 13-11) to make a strong impression at the meet. The Indian didn`t have a good start today but came back dramatically in the second game to win 15-13. She was down by four points in the game but resurrected herself. In the third game, she lost narrowly again but picked up momentum to put it across her Taipei opponent, who is ranked 28. Talking about her win, coach Bhawani Mukherjee said Ankita has improved by leaps and bound. "She did it yesterday against her Romanian rival and today against the Taipei girl. I think the second game was important and once she won that 15-13, her confidence level rose. She never let her grip on the match go," said Mukherjee. But it was curtains for the rest of the Indians at the meet. Sourav Saha, Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet Desai could not progress beyond the round of 16 in their singles match while the Indian girls could not go beyond the round of 32. Other results: Liam Pitchford (Eng) bt Sourav Saha 11-6, 11-6, 11-5, 8-11, 9-11, 11-5 Chia-Sheng Lee (Tpe) bt Soumyajit Ghosh 11-3, 11-4, 11-8, 6-11, 11-2, Cedric Nuytinck (Bel) bt Harmeet Desai 8-11, 11-9, 11-4, 11-7, 11-7. PTI