A cool and composed player that he is, stylish left hander Rajesh Singh stopped the winning run of Sunil Kelkar in the Veterans’ 39+ Men’s Singles final of the MCF -All Mumbai 4-Star Ranking Table Tennis tournament, hosted at their Sports Complex in Borivali, Mumbai today evening. Earlier, in the semi finals, while 2nd seed Rajesh Singh beat 3rd seed Abhay Mehta 3-1, Sunil kelkar who was in great form with his consistent forceful top spin attack, Knocked out top seed Kiran Salian 3-1 in other semi finals. Sunil had earlier knocked out seeded Ravi Chopra and Yogesh Desai respectively, in successive Pre -quarters and Quarter final rounds.
Winner and runner up in veterans 39+ singles rajesh Singh and Sunil kelkar pose with semi and Quarter finalists.
Sunil kelkar , who regularly practices at Guruprasad Parte’s TT Academy at MLWB-KKB is always encouraging junior upcoming players, by playing with them and giving them the right advice. He is equally committed to this game, when it’s time to represent his office BPT in Inter Office League or his individual event.
Men’s doubles winners and runners up
For this tournament, he had really worked hard for the past one week and therefore, while appreciating the consistent performance of ultimate winner Rajesh Singh for his big victory, the wonderful performance of Sunil Kelkar is certainly to be applauded. By the way, Sunil is younger brother of evergreen Prakash kelkar and father of Junior’s runner up in this tournament-Parthav kelkar. The four losing quarter finalists in veterans 39+ singles were, Gurucharan Singh, Yogesh Desai, Sarosh Shroff & Dinkar Shelarka, who lost to Kiran Salian, Sunil Kelkar, Rajesh Singh and Abhay Mehta respectively.
All the winners and runners up in veterans’, men’s doubles, mixed doubles and Women’s doubles pose together.
The men’s doubles event which was re-introduced after so many years, received very good response in this tournament, receiving 80 entries. In this event veterans’ Yogesh Desai and Dinkar Selarka put up a grand show, beating all the young pairs in five consecutive rounds with the same energy and enthusiasm. In the finals, they defeated young upcoming pair of Om Lotlikar and Soham Rane in three straight games, to become doubles champions.
In the mixed doubles event, young pair of Chand Patel and Krisha Agarwal defeated Soham Rane and Gauri Bhiungade, to become champions. Krisha however missed her double crown, as she along with her partner Hiya Doshi lost the Women’s doubles finals to Shalmalee Mhatre Gosar and Mrunmayee Mhatre.