Bhubaneswar: Abhishek Mohapatra and Ashish Parida of Odisha emerged boys’ U-16 doubles champions in the TAB AITA-OTA Championship Series tennis tournament, which concluded here at the Kalinga Stadium Tennis Complex, Friday. Abhishek and Ashish stunned top seed Arunava Majumdar of West Bengal 6-3, 6-2 in the final.
However, in the boys’ U-16 singles second seed Pratyush Mohanty of the state had to be satisfied with the runner-up finish. Pratyush fought gallantly before going down to Arunava 4-6, 6-2, 2-6 in the final.
Double crown
Odisha emerged champions in both the boys’ and the girls’ categories of the 21st National Sub-Junior Sepak Takraw Championships, which concluded at the KIIT premises here Friday. Boys scraped past Tamil Nadu 2-1, while girls edged out Manipur by the same margin in the finals.
TT tourney
The Senior Inter-State and National Table Tennis Championship will be held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Cuttack, January 4-9 next year, Odisha State Table Tennis Association (OSTTA) announced in a press release, Friday. Around 550 players in both the men’s and women’s categories from 30 states across the country are expected to participate in the event.
Talent scouting
The sports and youth affairs department of Odisha will hold a talent scouting program for admissions into various sports hostels in the state. The cluster and district level talent scouting will be conducted by the respective districts from June 25 to July 10 while the state level talent scouting will be held from August 8-13. The admissions of the selected candidates in different sports hostels will be completed on or before August 31.
