It's another great day for big petroleum. India's 82nd Senior National Table Tennis Championships are underway in Panchkula. In a PR coup for the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB), two of its sponsored athletes reached the women's singles finals. Manika Batra, India's top-ranked woman at world #63, uses long pips on her backhand, not to chop but to block right off the bounce with confounding spin. Batra won her maiden national singles championship in 2015. She lost in the 2017 finals to Sutirtha Mukherjee, who doubles as this year's defending singles champion. On opposite sides of the draw, the potential for a rematch between Batra and Mukherjee loomed large. This storyline was derailed, however, courtesy of Batra's PSPB teammate Reeth Rishya (aka Reeth Tennison), who dethroned Mukherjee in the round of 16. It was something of a Cinderella story for Rishya, India's 17th-ranked woman at world #573. In the final, Rishya claimed a two-games-to-nil lead over Batra. Her advantage proved short-lived, however, as Batra flipped a switch and destroyed Rishya, 11-1 in the third, before leveling the match with a more level 11-9 win in the fourth. Batra completed the comeback with a (8-11, 10-12, 11-1, 11-9, 11-5, 11-6) scoreline, bagging her second national title. Although she did not get the added satisfaction of avenging her 2017 loss to Sutirtha Mukherjee, she may savor the vengeance once-removed of beating Rishya, who had beaten Mukherjee. The drama had long since concluded for the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board, however, once Manika Batra and Reeth Rishya reached the finals. As has been the case for the last century, big petroleum wins either way.

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