Nilesh Prabhu the rising star at ICICI Lombard and Mahesh Shetye Ex-CGM of Bank of Baroda gave an impressive performance in 40+ Veterans’ Singles event at the MCF-TSTTA 4 Star Mumbai District ranking Table tennis tournament at MCF Club Borivali today evening. This event had attracted record number of entries in this tournament.
Playing in his group league match today evening, Nilesh Prabhu successively defeating Present 70+ World Veterans Champion Yogesh Desai 3-1 and then 3-1 win over renowned PTKS TT player and former Cricketer Chaitanya Deshpande 3-1, followed by 3-0 win over Saurabh Tamhane to qualify for the main draw with no. 1 position in his group.
Mahesh Shetye too had a similar success story which was combined with mixed luck to qualify in the main draw finishing with No. 2 position in his group. Mahesh first toppled former State and National level player Dinkar Shelarka followed by win over Diptesh Sheth. Mahesh lost narrowly to renowned veteran player and champ Rajesh Singh 2-3. However, based on the number of games won, Mahesh managed to qualify for the main draw.
Mahesh who regularly practices at MCF Club, Borivali, had a reason to celebrate with his other practice partners Santosh Jain and Nilesh who also qualified for the main draw. His another practice partner Sanjay Jain gave a tough fight to Ketan Palvankar and lost this crucial match 2-3 to him. Ketan also struggled against 60+ National Veterans Champion Anil Rasam before losing 2-3 to him and securing 2nd position in their group. This was the best match of the day. In another close battle noticed late evening was between Nitish Kumar and Girish Acharya , which Nitish won 3-2.