Reeth Rishya would have made the odd realist believe in miracles on July 30, 2023 when she took the Goa Challengers over the line against Chennai Lions in the Ultimate Table Tennis final.
With the tie, then drawn level at 7-all, trickling down to the very last game, Reeth would have sent up a prayer or two to heaven. She was 2-0 down in her singles game against Sutirtha Mukherjee, an accurate representation of having one’s back to the wall.
However, as they say, virtue thrives best in adversity. When the team needed her the most, she won 11-6 to hand the Challengers their first-ever title.
Cut to Tuesday, the pair was to lock horns again, albeit in different colours at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai.
While Sutirtha was wearing the orange and black of U Mumba, Reeth was representing the league debutant Ahmedabad SG Pipers, which eventually went on to win the tie 9-6 and move to the top of the points table.
Sutirtha would have thought this was the perfect time to settle scores. Especially, since a lot has happened over the past 13 months. The scale was now tilted all the more heavily towards the Naihati-born paddler.
Sutirtha is now an Asian Games medallist, having combined with childhood friend Ayhika Mukherjee to shock the world champion Chinese pair of Chen Meng and Yidi Wang. Reeth, on the other hand, has just returned from an injury.
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And as was expected, Sutirtha started off on an excellent note, claiming eight winners in a row and taking out Reeth 11-5 in the first game.
The 28-year-old picked up from where she left in the second game, continuing to annihilate Reeth with freaky pace on the backhand-to-backhand exchanges with the Butterfly Dignics 09c. Little did the Mumba dugout know that the celebrations were going to be shortlived.
Reeth is someone who enjoys a good challenge. “Of course, I was under pressure. But it didn’t matter to me even if I lost, I just needed to play my best. Both of our backhands are strong. It was like a challenge because I like to play on the backhand as well,” the 29-year-old tells Sportstar.
In no time, from being 0-4 down, Reeth established a 6-4 lead. Interestingly, Reeth wasn’t even trying to outpace Sutirtha during the rallies. She employed a fine balance of spin with the tomahawk and longer services. And before one could realise, Reeth took the second game 11-8 with her serve conversion going up to 45 percent from the erstwhile 20.
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The third game saw Sutirtha hot on Reeth’s trail as she clinched a nine-shot rally to make it 6-all. Reeth began to play with fire when she sent in a few serves deep into the baseline. But with three matchpoints, Reeth made Sutirtha drive long and out of bounds. She had done it again, winning 15 of the 27 short rallies and three of the four longer ones.
Earlier, Gujarat statemates Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah got the tie rolling. Although the first game turned out to be an incredibly lopsided affair as the Mumba skipper converted all his serves into winners in the first game (11-2), Manush changed the placement of his serves in the second to make Thakkar work hard for his points. Even though Manush bagged the last game, Thakkar won the fixture 2-1.
Meanwhile, SG Pipers’ Manush and captain Bernadette Szocs took things up a notch in mixed doubles as they won their third straight game of the season, inflicting a 3-0 clean sweep over Thakkar and Maria Xiao of Spain.
With a 6-3 lead, one would have expected Lilian Bardet to close out the tie against Nigeria’s Quadri Aruna, who has been on a winless run. But with Aruna snatching two games off the Frenchman, it was left to Szocs herself to seal the deal.
SCORES
Ahmedabad SG Pipers bt U Mumba TT 9-6:
Manush Shah lost to Manav Thakkar 1-2 (2-11, 9-11, 11-8); Reeth Rishya bt Sutirtha Mukherjee 2-1 (5-11, 11-8, 11-7); Manush/Szocs bt Manav/Xiao 3-0 (11-4, 11-8, 11-8); Lilian Bardet lost to Quadri Aruna 1-2 (5-11, 11-9, 9-11); Bernadette Szocs bt Maria Xiao 2-1 (9-11, 11-4, 11-6)
