Sports News | Sharath Kamal-powered Chennai Lions Beat Puneri Paltan, Make Second Consecutive UTT Final

Pune, Jul 29 (PTI) Indian veteran Sharath Kamal starred as defending champions Chennai Lions defeated home favourites Puneri Paltan 8-3 to storm into their second successive final in the Ultimate Table Tennis, here on Saturday.

Chennai Lions, who won the tournament last time when UTT was held in 2019, will face Goa Challengers in the summit clash at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex here on Sunday.

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Goa Challengers had on Friday defeated Dabang Delhi TT to make their maiden UTT final.

In the UTT semifinals, the team that first gets to eight points -- games won in the tie -- are declared the winners, and against the Pune outfit it was the Commonwealth Games champion who played the decisive role to seal their final berth.

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World No 34 Benedikt Duda set the ball rolling for Chennai Lions, upsetting Oman Assar 11-5, 11-7, 11-6 to give his side a 3-0 headstart in the second semifinal.

The German faced no obstacles whatsoever in swatting aside the threat of Assar, ranked higher at 23.

Duda was superior in his game play and just did not allow the burly Assar to bounce back, winning all three games.

Puneri Paltan bounced back to win their first game when Hana Matelova, ranked 58, handed a 11-3 defeat to Chennai's Yangzi Liu to win her side their first game.

But the Australian Liu found her rhythm to win the next two games, eventually the contest ended 3-11, 11-8, 11-7 that extended Chennai Lions' overall lead to 5-1.

Then it was the 41-year-old Sharath Kamal who took the centrestage and guided his team to win, starting with the third match -- a mixed doubles contest.

Sharath teamed up with Liu and stormed to a 11-4 win against the Puneri Paltan pair of Manush Shah and Matelova in the first game.

The second game was tougher for the Chennai pair who did bounce back to level the scores twice, but Shah and Matelova clinched a narrow win by 11-9.

Sharath and Liu, nevertheless, were too good in the third game to win 11-6 and stretched Chennai Lions lead to 7-2.

In the third match, a men's singles contest, Sharath started as favourite against world No 134 Shah, but was beaten 11-5 in the first game which also kept Puneri Paltan afloat with a 7-3 scoreline.

However, Sharath brought his ‘A' game forward to win 11-5 in the second game, which sealed their win as the third game was not required with Chennai Lions reaching eight points. DDV

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)