Organisation of any sports releated event requires a big team and excellent coordination amongst the team members. Kandivali Recreation Club, Kandivali , Mumbai displayed this skill recently, while organising their Veterans 40+ Table Tennis tournament . This tournament which was open to all Mumbai and surrounding area players was organised on Sunday and went on from 8.30 am till 8 pm.
64 participants in Men’s 40+ age group played league matches in a group of four each and two players from each group qualified for the knock out round of 32. The competition was really good, as most of the medal winners at the recently concluded national Veterans TT Championship participated in this tournament. With just Rs. 300/- as entry fee, the organisers provided free breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea or Juice, which was provided to every participant.
The atmosphere was healthy and the competitive spirit witnessed was electrifying with best battles displayed in qualifying league itself, among the players who were in the age group of 40+ till 70+ . Prominent among them were Yogesh Desai ,Prakash Kelkar, Naveen Salian, Rajesh Sigh, Satish Kulkarni, Ketan Palvankar, Satish Kulkarni and many others who have won medals at the national Masters Championship. KRC also felicitated Mr. Satish Kulkarni, Yogesh Desai, ,Prakash Kelkar and Anil Rasam for their consistent performance at the National and International TT Championships.
Naveen Salian won this tournament, beating Rajesh Singh 3-1 in the finals . However the two semi finals played earlier, were really worth watching. While Naveen Salian had to battle hard to overcome evergreen Prakash Kelkar 3-2, Rajesh Singh also had to toil hard to beat Bhushan Nevgi 3-2 before reaching finals. The four quarter finalists who put up a good show to reach that stage were Ketan Palvankar, Pramod Desai, Avinash Kothari and Anil Rasam. All four of them received cash prizes along with semi finalists and finalists. However, Bhushan Nevgi invited all the attention in this tournament, with excellent services and fast top spins. After qualifyfying in the knock out stage, he successively beat Ulhas Shirke, Atul Deshmukh and Anil Rasam on his way to semi finals, where he narrowly lost to Rajesh Singh 2-3. He certainly deserves special appreciation for this wonderful performance. Ketan Palwankar (son of former TT Champ Govind Palwankar), who was the new entrant into Veterans group , also displayed his skills . He beat present 70+ National Champion Satish Kulkarni in pre quarter finals. Parin Thakkar also invited the attention with his superb display of strokes and blocks, but he narrowly lost to Anil Rasam in pre quarter finals.
The conduct of this tournament was highly appreciated by current World Masters TT Champion in 70+ Mr. Yogesh Desai, who called it a perfect team work by KRC organisers.namely: Chandresh Shah, Manish Tutwala, Kalpesh Parmar, Sanjay Mehta ,Tejas Naik , Girish Acharya and others. “Such tournaments should be conducted by every club, as Veteran TT players need a lot of tournament practice. The requirement of veteran players is to have tournaments every month. Such is the passion for this game. KRC have made the beginning and now others will follow. ” he said.
Many other participants like Rajesh Mudam, Percy Patel, Avinash Kothari, Parin Thakkar, Dr. Bharat Kotecha, Manish Darak and others praised the KRC organising committee for their excellent organisation of this tournament. Indeed, the members of the organising committee were very hospitable to all the participants.
Results : Q/F onwards
Q/F : Naveen Salian bt Pramod Desai 3-0, P.G.Kelkar bt Ketan Palvankar 3-1, Rajesh Singh bt Avinash Kothari 3-2, Bhushan Nevgi bt Anil Rasam 3-1.
S/F : Naveen Salian bt P.G.Kelkar 3-2, Rajesh Singh bt Bhushan Nevgi 3-2,
Finals : Naveen Salian bt Rajesh Singh 3-1.