The standard of table tennis never rose above the pedestrian, and the KC duo of captain Arzan Khambatta and Behzaad Mistry had little trouble in their singles against Sydenham. Arzan, nephew of former national champion Baji Khambatta, then combined with Hozefa Rangoonwala to snuff out any hopes Sydenham harboured of forcing the reverse singles.

If the KC team seemed balanced, Jaihind depended heavily on junior college second seed Karan Kapoor.

Results

Boys U-19 semis: KC bt Sydenham 3-0 (Arzan Khambatta bt Mayank Agarwal 21-16 21-18 Behzaad Mistry bt Nikhil Bajaj 22-20, 21-12 Arzan & Hozefa Rangoonwala bt Mayank Agarwal & AshwinUppal 21-17 21-17); Jaihind bt RA Podar 3-1 (Zulfekar Lele lost to Niranjan Banodkar 21-18, 18-21, 18-21 Karan Kapoor bt Nikhil Subramaniam 21-14, 22-20 Karan & Zulfekar bt Niranjan & Nikhil 21-15 21-15 Karan bt Niranjan 21-14 21-13); Quarters: Sydenham bt Burhani 3-0; Jaihind bt Xavier's 3-1; Podar bt MD 3-0; KC bt Antonio D'Silva 3-0

Seeds advance

All the seeds had an easy workout on the opening day of the fifth State chess championships for the blind organised by the Maharashtra Chess Association at the University Club House today.

Swapnil Shah and Sanjay Karandikar, who represented India in the recently held World Championship at Beno, Czech Republic, won their respective games here.