Report on Jalandhar Masters’ National TT
Mumbai TT players namely Mangal Saraf, Anil Rasam, Prakash Kelkar, Satish Kulkarni, Yogesh Desai, Ulhas Shirke, , Rajesh Mudam, Neeta Kulkarni, Suhas Dandekar & Jayant Kulkarni bagged God medals in their respective age groups in the individual events of Singles and doubles respectively; at the 29th National Masters’ Table Tennis Championship, which concluded in Jalandhar recently.
Mangal Saraf bagged triple crown in Women’s 65+ singles, Women’s doubles partnering Deepa Jain and Mixed doubles partnering Yogesh Desai, while Yogesh Desai also bagged three Gold medals, first in Men’s doubles partering Ulhas Shirke, second while partnering Mangal Saraf in Mixed doubles and third for his Maharashtra A team as the captain in 70+ section. Chandrani Dey Ganguly from Bengal was the only other player besides Mangal to bag triple crown in individual events. Anil Rasam bagged three Gold medals, first in Men’s 60+ Singles, second in Men’s 60+ doubles partnering Rajesh Mudam and the third in the team event for Maharashtra ‘A’ in Men’s 60+ section. Maharashtra’s Suhasini Bakre along with Neeta Kulkarni bagged a Gold medal in Women’s doubles 60+ event, while another pair from Maharashtra Ujwala Marathe & Swati Agharkar bagged a Bronze in the same event.
In the Women’s doubles 65+ section, while Mangal Saraf and Deepa Jain bagged a Gold, other Maharashtra pairs comprising of Mythili Sodhi & Rajeshwari Mehtre won a Silver and Ranjana Patki & Manisha Bodas winning a Bronze in the same group.
Mumbai’s Prakash Kelkar proved his supremacy once again in Men’s 65+ Singles when he bagged a Gold medal in this group. He along with Jayant Kulkarni , Shivanand Kundaje, Jayant Kulkarni , Suhas Dandekar and Avinash Joshi had already won a Gold medal for Maharashtra ‘A’ in the Men’s 65+ team event. Besides Prakash Kelkar and Anil Rasam, another Mumbai player who won a Gold in Men’s Singles was Satish Kulkarni,who won a Gold in Men’s 70+ section defeating recent World Veterans’ Champion Yogesh Desai 3-0 in the finals.
The overall performance of Maharashtra teams in the Team championship event was very good as in the Men’s team event Maharashtra won 3 Gold medals, ( M 60+, M65+ & M70+) , 2 Silver Medals ( M50+, & M60+ B team), & 2 Bronze medals ( M40+ & M 70+ B team). In the Women’s team events, Maharashtra women won 1 Gold ( W 65+), 1 Silver ( W 60+) & 2 Bronze medals ( W 40+ & W 65+ B team) sections.
In some of the individual events, we noticed the dominance of Maharashtra players on the dais while sharing the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. In Men’s 70+ section we saw Satish Kulkarni( G), Yogesh Desai( B), Ulhas Shirke & Pinkain Sampat (B) all Maharashtra players together. Then we saw Mangal Saraf ( G), Ranjana Patki ( S), Mythili Sodhi & Rajeshwari Mehtre (B) receiving their medals together. Similar situation was noticed in Mixed doubles 65+ section, where we saw Mangal Saraf -Yogesh Desai (Gold), Jayant Kulkarni & Mythili Sodhi ( Silver) and Shivandnd Kundaje & Sunanda Rao ( B) , Suhas Dandekar & Rajeshwari Mehtre(B) all Maharashtra players together on the dais.
There were many good performers from Maharashtra. They were, Gold medalists Dr. Nitin Toshniwal & Manish Rawat ( Men’s 50+doubles ), Manish Rawant Silver medallist in Men’s 50+Singles , Manish Rawat & Shilpa Joshi Silver medalists in Mixed Doubles 50+ section, Silver medallist Dr. Anagha Joshi whose semi final match against Gujarat’s Sonal Joshi was the match to remember in Women’s 50+. Shruti Kanade Joshi & Sarika Varade both Bronze medalists from Maharashtra in Women’s 40+ section did well to reach the semi final stage. Suhasini Bakre Silver medalist in Women’s 60+ also played very well toreach this stage. The other notable performers from Maharashtra were, Bronze medallist in Women’s 60+ group Swati Agharkar ( W 50+), Silver medallist Ranjana Patki (W 65+),Sarosh Shroff & Kapil Kumar both Silver medalists in Men’s 60+ doubles, Prakash Kelkar & Anandtirth Avadhani – Bronze medallist in Men’s 65+ section, Dr. Anagha Joshi & Shilpa Joshi ( Bronze) and Manisha Pradhan & Sivapriya Naik ( Bronze) in Women’s doubles 50+ section.
In the Mixed doubles 40+ section Omkar Jog and Vinita Shukla bagged a Bronze medal, while two more Bronze medals were won in Mixed doubles 50+ section by Pramod Desai & Rohini Ailwar and Purshottam Makkad & Neeta Kulkarni in Mixed doubles 60+ . In the Men’s Singles 40+ section Santosh Wakradkar was the only player from Maharashtra to bag a Bronze medal.
Besides managing the administrative work of Maharashtra teams on behalf of Maharashtra Veterans Committee/MSTTA, Suhas Dandekar did well to win a Gold in Men’s 65+ doubles along with Giant Killer Jayant Kulkarni and also a Bronze medal in Mixed Doubles 65+ along with Rajeshwari Mehtre. He was also member of Maharashtra Men’s 65+ team which won Gold medal. Dandekar was helped by Mr. Rajendra Bhoboo and Shekhar Varadkar to look after the requirements of Maharashtra team members at the venue and hotels. Also Special thanks to Prasad Naik, who besides playing his own matches and performing well, made every player happy by clicking his or her action photos. He certainly deserves a special award.
The local association of Jalandhar – the hosts offered good attractive trophies in prizes to the individual and team winners. They had also organised a big felicitation function along with TTFI and Indian Veterans Committee, for Indian TT players who had won medals at the World Veterans TT Championship at Muscat, Oman earlier this year. However, due to sad demise of one of the medalists Arun Singh Barhat who suffered a severe heart attack day before the start of this championship, this function was held later on the penultimate day.
On the 2nd day of the tournament, TTFI Hon.Secretary Mr. Kamalesh Mehta addressed the veteran players and listended to their grievances about the conduct of Masters National TT championship. He assured that TTFI would try to implement most of the suggestions. Compared to the response received at earlier Masters National championship, the response for Jalandhar championship was not overwhelming, as many players from Southern India and other places could not make it. It is therefore very necessary to announce the dates of such Major championships well in advance and the venue of the next Masters National Championship should be well connected by air and trains with direct flights and direct trains from different places of India. For senior citizens, it becomes very difficult to travel by breaking their journey while carrying their baggage.