Mahesh Vishnu Shetye , gave a big scare to Top seeded Prakash Kelkar in the semi finals of Men’s 65+ event at the K.K.Rai Memorial Masters’ TT tournament hosted by MMTTC & BKLP at Kalidas Sports Complex, Mulund on Sunday evening.
Mahesh, the Ex- Chief Manager of Bank of Broda, who made his comeback to competitive Table Tennis recently, matched very well against evergreen Prakash and played very confidently, blocking the spin attack of the National Veterans’ Champ. He won the first two games to take 2-0 lead against Prakash and also led with a comfortable margin in the second half of third game. However, at this stage, Prakash used all his skills to save three match points to win the third game at 13-11.
In the fourth game Prakash did well with his services and variations to equalise the set score at 2-2. Everyone thought that Prakash would win this decider easily, having understood the game of his intelligent opponent from MCF Club , Borivali. But, once again he found himself in trouble in the mid stage of the game. However, the two effective services at this crucial stage of the game, gained him the lead of two points and this helped him to overcome his tough opponent in the decider, to win the game and match. Soon after his win, Prakash gave a big hug to his grandson, who was waiting to welcome him.
Prakash Kelkar had comparatively easy time in finals, when he beat another MCF Club player Ashok Sawant 3-0 in the finals. Earlier, in other semi finals, Ashok Sawant had to struggle hard against his another MCF player and practice partner Anthony Gomes in a five game battle. In fact. MCF Club players had dominated the main draw, but Prakash stopped the winning run of one of them, in semi finals.
One more interesting close match was noticed between Chaitanya Deshpande from PTKS and Ravindra Ekande from Thane. It was a neck to neck battle between these two players in the Men’s 49+ Pre –quarter finals, which was stretched to five games. But, at the concluding stage, Chaitanya, who looked more confident, took the risk of opening the attack first and succeeded in winning this closely fought match.
Interestingly, Shivanand Kundaje from Nasik, cuased a major upset in the Men’s 69+ Group league, when he beat present World Veterans’ Champion Yogesh Desai in three straight games, to qualify in the 1st position from his group for the main draw. However, Yogesh who took the 2nd position from his group easily managed to win his Q/F and S/F matches and avenged his defeat, when he met Shivanand once again in the finals of this event. Yogesh won the finals defeating Shivanand 3-1. In Men’s 74+ section A. Warunkar proved his supremacy by winning his second title of MMTTC this season. He also introduced former National TT level TT Player R.R. Borkar in this tournament. Mr. Borkar made his comeback into TT after almost 40 years in Men’s 74+ category. He was welcomed by all the senior players.
In the Women’s singles 39+ finals, Vinita Shukla won her second MMTTC title of this season, when she defeated Dr. Reena Bhagat 3-0. She had also won the TSTTA 4 Star Ranking TT Tournament in Women’s 40+ section, few days ago, at MCF Club, Borivali. Vinita had made her comeback to TT this year through National Masters’ TT at Jalandhar. As a Junior, She had played for Madhya Pradesh team, almost 30 years ago.
Moonmoon Ghosh who had also taken a break of six months from TT, also made a grand comeback, winning the Women’s 49+ singles, beating Sivapriya 3-1 in the finals. In spite of helping her husband at the help desk of MMTTC, Swati Agharkar won her Women’s 59+ title defeating Nisha Kapse 3-0 in the finals. Similarly, Suhasini Bakre Vice President of MMTTC, in spite of her total involvement in organisation committee, beat National Champion Mangal Saraf 3-1 in the finals of Women’s 64+ event.
Moonmoon Mukherjee (L) Winner of Women’s 49+, congratulating Vinita Shukla ( R),Winner of Women’s 39+.in presence of other medal winners Mangal Saraf and Nutan Dhikle.
The highlight of this tournament was an excellent coordination noticed between officials of MMTTC and BKLP, Mulund during the course of this tournament. Moreover, the participants were very happy with the fine gesture from organisers, as they were served good breakfast on their arrival followed by mini lunch during afternoon hours on the first day. On the second day they were served breakfast in the morning and lunch in the afternoon, followed by tea. Participants also received free T shirts from the organisers. All this was possible because of different sponsors and some players themselves from Kalidas Sports Academy coming forward with their donations.
The grand inauguration ceremony was held in presence of chief guest Shri. Mihir Kotecha ( MLA), Shri. Sunil Godase- OSD( BMC) and other dignitaries including Shri. Prakashbahi Gangadhare, Ex- Corporator, Shri. Mayurbhai Shah of Marathon Realty Pvt. Ltd, Shri Sanjay Dedhia & Shri Jagadish Dedhia of Mitsui Chem Plast, & Ms. Bharti Rai wife of Late K.K.Rai, in whose memory this tournament was held.
Besides individual Masters’ events in Men’s and Women’s singles, Team events were also held in Women’s above 39+ and Men’s above 39+ and 59+ age groups and this generated a good competition among the enthusiastic participants.
The Men’s team event 39+ was won by PTKS- A team represented by Sameer Bhate, Suhas Rane, Rupesh Gharat and Rajesh Shah who beat NASA team represented by Teajas Naik, Kiran Salian, Naveen Salian and Suraj Chandrashekhar. Earlier in the semi finals NASA team won a close match against 2nd seeded team Siddhanchal ‘A’ represented by Vishal Yadav, Vaibhav Raje,Sanil Desai and Bhushan Nevgi 3-2. Naveen Salian won both his singles and Suraj Chandrashekhar managed to win the crucial deciding match 3-2 against Vishal Yadav, in spite of suffering an injury during the match. In other semi finals, PTKS ‘A’ defeated TLac Academy, Nashik represented by Divyendu Chandurkar, Amol Sarode, Satish Patel, Abhijit Patil and Mayuresh Kulkarni.
In the Men’s 59+ team event finals, Rock Solid team represented by Sarosh Shroff, Jogesh Motwani and Atul Deshmukh beat Like Minded team 3-1, represented by Purshottam Markad, Nitish Kumar & Prashant Machve. The two semi finalist teams in this group winning Bronze medals were ‘Team Nitin’represented by Nitin Mehendale( from Pune) and Kapil Kumar from Mumbai and Team ‘KRC( Kaka) represented by Anil Rasam, Rajesh Mudam,Pramod Desai and Girish Acharya.
Huge trophies, medals were presented to winners and cash prizes were given to them along with the semi finalists and Quarter finalists in some events. The overall conduct of this tournament was a grand success and Mr. Samir Bhate Hon.Secretary of MMTTC on behalf of the organisers thanked the BMC authorities for making available this wonderful Badminton Hall and offering facilities at the venue.
The List of Men’s and Women’s Singles Winners ,Runners up, Semi Finlists and Qurter Finlists( In some events) is as follows :
Women’s 39+ : Winner: Vinita Jitendra Shukla, R-up : Dr.Reena Bhagat, Semi Finalists : Swati Thube & Dr.Sadiya Vanjara.
Women’s 49+ : Winner: Moonmoon Mukherjee,R-up: Sivapriya, Semi Finalists : Trupti Machve & Shravani Dhapre.
Women’s 59+ : Winner: Swathi Agharkar, R-up: Nisha Kapse, Semi Finalists : Winner: Madhavi Sawant & Nutan Dhikale.
Women’s 64+ : Winner: Suhasini Bakre, R-up:Mangal Saraf,
Semi Finalists : Rajeshwari Mhetre & Ujwala Marathe.
Men’s 39+: Winner: Suhas Rane, R-up: Ketan Palwankar ,
Semi Finalists : Kedar Kasbekar & Vishal Yadav.
Quarter Finalists : Divyendu Chandurkar, Suraj Chandrashekhar, Rupesh Gharat & Hormaz Pithawala.
Men’s 49+ : Winner: Kiran Salian, R-up: Sameer Bhate,
Semi Finalists : Tejas Naik & Dr.Nitin Toshniwal
Quarter Finalists: Rajesh Suratwala,Chaitanya Deshpande, Rajesh Shah & Rajnish Khatavkar.
Men’s 59+ : Winner: Sarosh Shroff, R-up: Atul Deshmukh,
Semi Finalists: Nitish Kumar & Anil Rasam.
Quarter Finalists : Nitin Mehendale, Percy Patel,Yshwant Bhoir & Kapilkumar.
Men’s 64+: Winner : Prakash G Kelkar, R-up: Ashok Sawant ,
Semi Finalists : Anthony Ubaldino Gomes & Mahesh Vishnu Shetye,
QuarterFinalists : Subhas Gujarathi , Boman Bulsara, Arun Dhotre & Jitu Mawani.
Men’s 69+ : Winner: Yogesh Desai, R-up: Shivanand Kundaje,
Semi Finalists : Milind Moghe & Ulhas Shirke .
Men’s 74+ : Winner : A. Warunkar, R-up: Satish Shirsath,
Semi Finalists : Purvez Davar & Udupi Premnath.