Anirban Ghosh and Sreeja Akula won their maiden singles titles in boys and girls categories, respectively at the ITTF El Salvador Junior and Cadet Open table tennis championships as Indian paddlers finished on a high with seven gold, six silver and four bronze medals.
Moumita Dutta won the cadet girls' title, while Arjun Ghosh lost in the final of cadet boys' event yesterday. India also clinched cadet boys' and cadet girls' doubles gold medals.
Indian paddlers had earlier won both the team titles in the cadet sections.
Last year's quarter-finalist, Anirban defeated teammate Birdie Boro in the final 12-10 11-9 8-11 5-11 11-6 11-9 in a see-saw encounter.
While Anirban's win was a bit of surprise for many, the success recorded by Sreeja in the
junior girls' singles event against a much-known, No. 2 seed Sagarika Mukherjee, stunned everyone.
After beating top seed Dominican Republic's Eva Brito in the quarterfinals 4-2, Sreeja got the better of Spain's Zhang Xuan, seeded fourth, in the semifinals with a similar scoreline.
And deservingly, she posted another six-game win (8-11 11-6 12-10 9-11 11-5 11-4) against Sagarika in the final.
The surprise finalist, Arjun finished with the silver medal after going down 1-3 (11-8 13-15 8-11 12-14) to second seeded Kwan Man Ho of Hong Kong in the cadet boys final.
In cadet girls' singles, Moumita, a player with no world ranking, emerged as the champion. In the final she accounted for Zhang Xuan, second seed, by the narrowest of margins in a five-game duel (11-7 11-9 8-11 11-13 11-9) after beating compatriot and top seed Sagarika in the semifinals.
Anirban and Arjun joined forces to win the cadet boys' doubles title by beating colleagues Birdie Boro and Lalrin Puia 10-12 11-4 11-2 9-11 11-8.
Moumita and Sagarika eased past Peruvian duo of Valeria Cuba and Andrea Guzman 14-12 11-8 12-10 in the girls' event.