The girls team was rewarded for its resilience as it had to face strong teams in both its group and during the knockout stages. “My team was drawn alongside tough opponents such as West Bengal, Karnataka, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand. 

Only two teams from each group qualify for the quarter-finals. Despite being placed in such a tough group, we finished second behind Karnataka, to whom we went down fighting in five sets. 

Except that match, we won all the other matches fairly comfortably,” said coach C Sri Kesavan. Tamil Nadu had to cross another tough hurdle in the 

last eight stage in the form of Gujarat, and once again it passed the test with flying colours. 

“We defeated a formidable team like Gujarat in staright sets, 25-10, 25-8, 25-18. 

Unfortunately, we couldn’t sustain that momentum in our semi-final against Kerala. Even though we lost, what made me happy was how my team kept fighting till the end. We lost 22-25, 25-19, 12-25, 16-25. 

Losing to a team like Kerala is no shame since it went on to beat a superior team in SAI in the final,” added Kesavan. It may have missed out on a place in the final, but TN didn’t let that loss to Kerala affect its morale as it beat Karnataka 25-21, 18-25, 25-10, 25-16 to return home with a bronze. 

“It gave me a lot of satisfaction to avenge our group stage defeat to Karnataka. We were the dominant team from the beginning and were the deserving winner,” said Kesavan.