Howrah, Oct 19 (IANS): If hosts West Bengals sub-junior boys led the qualification chart with as many as 10 of them making the cut, it was Maharashtra girls who topped with nine of them entering the main draw in the same category of the UTT National Ranking (East Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the Howrah Indoor Stadium here on Saturday.

Even as the qualifiers got engaged themselves with their first-round matches in both the sections, the eight top players who got byes will be seen in action from late evening.

However, what made things interesting on the second day was the few matches that went down to the wire in the last round of qualification.

Maharashtra's Aadil Anand edged past Soumil Mukherjee of West Bengal 11-9, 4-11, 7-11, 11-9, 13-11 in a thriller as the former managed extended points in the decider to seal his main-draw place.

K.J. Akash of Karnataka beat Trishul Mehra of Telangana 11-13, 11-2, 7-11, 11-5, 11-9. Tejas Narang of Delhi too had to dig himself out of the rut in the decider to oust P.B. Abhinand of Tamil Nadu 11-3, 11-9, 11-8, 3-11, 12-10.

Haryana's Namir Arora, despite beating Jyoti Sarma of Assam 8-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-5, 11-6 in yet another thriller, could not qualify, while statemate Naman Arora eased into the main draw, beating Krishna Ashmith of Tamil Nadu 11-3, 11-7, 11-6.