Naina turns tables

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Hyderabad: Hyderabad paddler Naina Jaiswal lived up to her promise by winning the sub-junior girls singles title at the Central Zone national ranking table tennis championships at Gandhidham in Gujarat.
With the triumph, Naina has completed a hat-trick, having already won the championship at Jammu & Kashmir in 2011 and Bengaluru in 2012. In the title round, Naina registered a thumping straight-games victory, crushing Uttar Pradesh player Aishwarya Pathak 11-4, 11-6, 11-7, 11-5.
Naina established her dominance right at the start, reeling off one winner after the other to leave her opponent unsettled. Aishwarya managed to win just four points while Naina claimed the first game. That shifted the momentum in Naina’s favour in decisive fashion.
Aishwarya tried her best to pull one back in the second game, but Naina was on too much of a roll, winning it 11-6. The UP girl put up a valiant fight in the third game, to no avail, as Naina carved out a 3-0 lead by winning 11-7. The fourth game seemed a formality as Naina wrapped it up 11-5 — and with it the match and title.
Naina had been in great form the entire tournament, dropping just one game en route to clinching the title. Except for the final and semifinals, all matches were played in a ‘best-of-five-games’ format.
Earlier, in the quarterfinals, Naina thrashed UP paddler Saundarya Pathak 3-0 in straight games.
Naina was brutal in her dismantling of Saundarya. After winning the first game 11-3, she clinched the next two 11-6, 11-8 to complete a comprehensive victory.
In the semifinal, Naina made a similarly aggressive start against Shruti Amrute of Maharashtra, winning 11-3.
But the Maharashtra paddler turned the tables in the second game, winning it 9-11. But Naina hit back hard in the third and fourth games, winning the third game 11-6 to get back in the lead and taking the fourth 11-8 for a 3-1 lead. In the fifth game, Naina consistently outplayed Shruti to win 11-7 to win the match and advance to the final.