Thiruvananthapuram :
Alappuzha girls Maria Rony and Seraha Jacob have been named in the seven-member Indian girls team for 21st Asian junior and cadet TT Championships to be held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from July 22 to 26.
This is the first time two paddlers from the state are making it to the national junior squad together.
Maria is studying at Sacred Heart College, Thevara in Ernakulam while Seraha is a student of St Joseph’s College, Alappuzha and both are doing first year bachelor’s in commerce. But both girls train at Alappuzha YMCA TT Academy with Bobby Mathew.
Maria was part of Asian team which won a gold medal in World Cadet Challenge held at Puerto Rico in 2011 while Seraha was in the Indian team which participated in the World Junior Table Tennis Championships held at Shanghai, China in 2014.
“I’m glad that I got Seraha also in squad. We hope to make it count in doubles. In the team competitions Sreeja (Akula) and Shruti (Amrute) will play singles. We trained well for the past 10 days including the three-day trials in Delhi and we’re eager to do well for the country,” Maria told TOI from Delhi before boarding the flight. Sreeja represents Telangana while Shruti, the reigning national junior champion, is from Maharashtra and both represented India at Shanghai worlds.
The seven-member boys team too was selected after three-day selection trials at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi by a committee including Arjuna Awardee Manjit Dua, Vijay Singh and Jyoti Shah. The international and national rankings of the players were also taken into consideration.
Maria, ranked No. 2 in the country has a world ranking of 228 while Seraha No. 4 in the country has a world ranking of 300-plus.
“We know the threat from China and Korea. When it comes to team competition, India is as best as anyone out there. In individual events, they might have an upper hand,” added Maria.
The Asian meet assumes important as only the top five in junior categories will qualify for the World Junior Championships to be held at Vendee in France from November 29 to December 6.
“The girls really has the potential to qualify for the Vendee World Junior championships from Malaysian meet,” said Table Tennis Federation of India chief Dharnraj Choudhary. “The girls qualified for worlds last time also and performed well too,” he reminded.
Squads:
Junior BOYS: Utkarsh Gupta, Sanish Ambekar, Lalrin Puia and Ravidira Kotiyan; GIRLS: Sreeja Akula, Shruti Amrute, Maria Rony and Serah Jacob; Cadet BOYS: Manav Thakkar, Parth Virmani and Sarthak Seth; GIRLS: Archana Kamath, Shrusthi Halengadi and Varul Jaiswal
Coaches: Sandeep Gupta, Vijay Singh and Jyoti Shah
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Thiruvananthapuram / TNN / July 24th, 2015