It is always a delight to watch evergreen Jayant Kulkarni, when he finds his rhythm to use his flat kills, no matter who is on the other side. This time it was his turn to face another hard hitter Sarosh Shroff in the pre quarter finals of Veterans’ Men’s 39+ singles in the morning session of the MCF -All Mumbai 4-Star Ranking Table Tennis tournament, hosted by Mandpeshwar Civil Federation at their Sports Complex in Borivali today morning.
Jayant Kulkarni
Jayant won the first game with ease, but committed few errors to lose the second game to Sarosh who preferred to play safe, waiting for the right opportunity to finish the rally. Jayant won the third game to take the lead 2-1.he was also leading with a big margin in the fourth game and could have managed the game and match at one stage, but Sarosh once again succeeded in slowing down the game once again, to not only equalize the game and set score score but also win that crucial game over extra points. The fifth game also turned out to be a good battle between two hard hitters. Leading 10-7 in the decider, Jayant managed to come closer by winning two points. But, luck was in favour of Sarosh, who took the last point to win the match.
Sarosh Shroff
In another pre quarter final match dashing Sunil kelkar scored 3-1 victory over seeded Ravi Chopra, not allowing his aggressive opponent to find his tempo. The other pre quarter final matches were almost one sided except for Navin Salian putting up a good fight against Abhay Mehta. Navin had won the first game and even fell short of just one point in the fourth game to lose the match 1-3.
After a long time, doubles events were played and received good response from the players, who gave their entries at a short notice. In the women’s doubles Shalmalee Mhatre Gosar and Mrunmayee Mhatre had no competition, but, will face young pair of krisha Agarwal and Hiya Doshi in the finals. In the Mixed doubles young Soham Rane and Gauri Bhiungade who defeated Om Lotlikar and Nandini Sawant in semi finals, will meet another young combination of Chand Patel & Krisha Agarwal in the finals. So, krisha has assured her medal, being into two doubles finals.
Results : Veterans’ 39+ men’s Singles ( Pre Quarter Finals)
Kiran Salian bt Rajesh Suratwala 3-0
Abhay Mehta bt Navin Salian 3-1
Sarosh Shroff bt Jayant Kulkarni 3-2
Sunil kelkar bt Ravi Chopra 3-1
Dinkar Selarka bt Nitin Walavalkar 3-1
Yogesh Desai bt Prakash Punjabi 3-0
Gurucharan Singh bt Suhas Rane 3-1
Rajesh Singh bt Deepak Dudhane 3-1
The line up for the Quarter finals in Veterans 39+ to be played later during the day is as follows:
Rajesh Singh v/s Sarosh Shroff, Kiran salian v/s Gurucharan Singh, Rajesh Singh v/s Sarosh Shroff, Abhay Mehta v/s Dinkar Selarka.