Manika Batra, armed with a new-found stardom following her exploits in the Commonwealth Games, could find it tough against familiar opposition when the new domestic season begins with the National-ranking (North Zone) table tennis championship here on Thursday.
Manika is seeded second behind National champion Sutirtha Mukherjee. In the last National championship final, Sutirtha had bounced back to outwit Manika.
Among the men, the presence of eight-time National champion Sharath Kamal is significant. He is likely to miss the next event in Indore as he was keen to use the time to get into a better physical shape ahead of the Korea Open leading to the Jakarta Asian Games next month.
With the top-ranked G. Sathiyan and Harmeet Desai away in Hong Kong, Sharath and A. Amalraj could set up a repeat of this year’s National final. However, the second seed will have to deal with Sanil Shetty and Manav Thakkar.
With over 1400 entries, the action begins with the age-group sections before culminating with the seniors on July 10.