Hyd girl wins ITTF title

Andhra Pradesh’s newest table tennis sensation, Akula Sreeja, scaled yet another dizzy height on Saturday by winning her maiden junior girls’ title at the ITTF El Salvador Junior and Cadet Open Championships. It also marked a new high for India in a tournament of this magnitude. India reaped a rich harvest of seven gold, six silver and four bronze medals.

Sreeja conquers El Salvador

Hyderabad: The golden run of Aakula Sreeja continues into distant El Salvador. The Sreeja juggernaut rolled on and took yet another global conquest in its stride late Friday night. Adding another feather to her cap, the Hyderabad teenager’s latest accomplishment found its echo in the Lal Bahadur Indoor Stadium, where the State ranking table tennis championship is currently underway. After all, for Global Table Tennis Association (GTTA) this was super bonanza. It is organising its ever ranking tournament and Sreeja is its product, from the time she learnt the nuances to the present stature, under coach, Somnath Ghosh.

Sreeja scripted a glorious stunner when she clinched the junior girls’ singles title beating the more formidable second seeded compatriot, Sagarika Mukherjee in a nerve-wrecking final, 8-11, 11-6, 12-10, 9-11, 11-5, 11-4. The bright young kid has had a fairytale run, so to say. She scalped the best in the field in back-to-back matches to indicate her growing prowess that stand testimony to a mindboggling match-temperament.

She accounted for top seeded Eva Brito of Dominican Republic in the quarter-finals, stretched the streak into the last four when fourth seeded Spaniard Zhang Xuan became her victim and put it across Mukherjee to complete the magical week.
Quite significantly, each was beaten 4-2 to announce the arrival of Brand Sreeja in the ITTF Junior circuit.