Indians, seeds sail into third round

India's nemesis in the final of the men's team event Merotohun Monday of Nigeria was the only notable casualty on the first day of the Open events in the 15th Commonwealth table tennis championships in Delhi on Wednesday, as all seeded players won their respective matches.

The unranked Monday, who defeated India's top two players Chetan Baboor and S Raman while winning both his singles and also the doubles in the team final on Tuesday to script Nigeria's memorable title victory, lost 15-21, 21-15, 21-17, 8-21, 22-20 to Li Aaron of New Zealand in the second round, to crash out of the men's singles championship.

All the top Indian players, including Baboor, Raman and national champion Soumyadeep Roy, all of whom got first round byes, had a smooth passage to the third round, which will be played late on Wednesday evening, with convincing victories.

In the women's section, national champion Poulami Ghatak sailed to the third round with a 21-17, 15-21, 21-17, 21-13 win over Chiu Wennin of Canada.

Second seed Baboor did not have to exert himself as his opponent Mazin Mohamed of Maldives conceded his second round match after losing the first game at 4-21.

Top seed and defending champion Syed Mathew of England toyed with his Sri Lankan opponent Chalitha Ranjana for a 21-5, 21-10, 21-8 victory in the second round.

Raman defeated Kassam Faazil of Canada 21-14, 21-6, 22-20 while Soumyadeep beat Evgeniou Evgenios of Cyprus 21-6, 21-11, 21-12 to move into the third round.

Monday's compatriot and third seed Toriola Segun and fourth seed Duan Yong Jun of Singapore too made it to the third round as did Indians Subhajit Saha, Anal Kashyap, Bhushan Thakur, Saurabh Chakraborty and Arnav Ganguly.

The quarter-final line-up of the mixed doubles saw seven of the top eight seeds make the grade. The only exception was eighth seed pair of Trevor Brown and Miao Miao of Australia who lost in the second round.

The seventh seed pair of Baboor and Ghatak and the unseeded combination of Soumyadeep and Montu Ghosh made it to the last eight stage of the championship in contrasting styles. While Baboor and Ghatak had no problems in quelling the challenge of compatriots Arjun Dutta and Sushmita Roy 21-15, 21-14, Soumyadeep and Montu had to struggle against Ryan Jenkins and Bethan Daunton of Wales before winning 21-17, 19-21, 21-17.