Kolkata June 27 (IANS) Anthony Amalraj and Swedens Mattias Karlsson essayed key roles in paving Maharashtra Uniteds march into the semi-finals of the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) tournament at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here on Wednesday.
In a tense encounter against Warriors TTC United achieved their goal of advancing to the knockout stage in the sixth contest of the tie when Karlsson tamed star player Sharath Kamal 3-0 to give his side the required 11 points.
Madhurika Patkar lost the last match 0-3 but by then the fates of both the teams were sealed with Warriors now having absolutely no chance of making it to the last four.
Romania s Elizabeta Samara another star for United set the ball rolling comprehensively beating Pooja Sahasrabuddhe 3-0.
Amalraj and America s Lily Zhang then upstaged Achanta Sharath Kamal and Sofia Polcanova 2-1 (11-10 11-9 6-11) to give United the crucial 5-4 advantage after the first three matches.
Elizabeta Samara also downed Sofia Polcanova 2-1 (9-11 11-10 11-10) in a tense battle that was decided by golden points.
Chih Yuan Huang fought a valiant battle for Warriors winning both his singles to level the scores twice.
The World No. 15 from Chinese Taipei downed Amalraj 3-0 (11-6 11-6 11-6) as Warriors equalised the tie 3-3. He then upstaged United captain Joao Monteiro 2-1 (6-11 11-4 11-8) to help Warriors pull level at 6-6.
But the Polcanova and Sharath s defeats meant that Warriors were out of the reckoning.

--IANS dm/pur/bg