Shilpa Joshi from Kolhapur, Sunil Babras from Pune and Yogesh Desai & Naveen Salian from Mumbai bagged two Gold medals each, at the recently concluded Commonwealth Masters’ Table Tennis Championship at Hyderabad. Shilpa, while playing in the Women’s 50+ section beat Shivpriya from Mumbai in the Women’s Singles finals and later partnering Divya Pandya, she won another Gold in the Women’s Doubles 50+section. Shilpa also bagged a Silver medal in 50+ Mixed doubles, partnering Kapil Kumar from Mumbai.
Sunil Babras bagged first Gold in the Men’s 60+ Singles defeating Soram K Singh in the finals and later bagged second Gold in Men’s 60+ doubles partnering Vinay Chopra from Delhi. Current World Veterans’ Champ Yogesh Desai from Munbai who was favourite in this tournament, bagged first Gold in Men’s 70+ Singles by stopping the winning run of Ranga Rao V.G, who had earlier beaten Satish Kulkarni and Ulhas Shirke successively in quarters and semis, before reaching finals. Yogesh thereafter partnering Ulhas Shirke bagged second Gold in Men’s 70+ doubles beating Satish Kulkarni and Pinakin Sampat in finals.
Besides Yogesh Desai, another star player from Mumbai Naveen Salian also bagged double Gold, when he won the Men’s 55+ Singles, defeating Kishore Motwani in the finals .Thereafter, partnering Rajesh Singh also from Mumbai, he won his second Gold medal. Mangal Saraf from Mumbai also bagged a Gold in Women’s 65+ doubles, partnering Rita Jain from M.P. She missed her second Gold, as she lost to her Partner Rita in the finals of Women’s 65+ Singles. Suhasini Bakre who also bagged Gold partnering Prakash kelkar in Mixed Doubles 65+. She too missed her second Gold, as she lost to World Masters’ Champ Mantu Murmu and had to settle for Silver. She however bagged her third medal which was Bronze, in Women’s 60+ doubles, partering Neeta Kulkarni.
Evergreen Prakash Kelkar who bagged a Gold medal in Mixed doubles 60+ partnering Suhasini Bakre, went on to win a silver medal in the finals of Men’s 65+ after losing to Ravi Vasishta, won another Silver in Men’s 60+doubles, partnering Shivanand Kundaje from Nashik. Mumbai pair Sameer Bhate and Shravani Dhapre did well to bag a Gold medal in the Mixed 50+ Doubles. Samir had earlier won a Bronze in the Men’s Singles 50+, while Shravani also bagged a Bronze in Women’s 50+ Singles and a Silver in Women’s 40+ doubles partnering Sadiya Vanjara. Mumbai’s Santosh Jain gave a good performance bagging one Silver medal in Men’s 50+ Singles. Mumbai’s Bhishma Pitamah of Veterans Table Tennis A.M. Warunkar bagged a Silver in the Men’s 75+ Singles. Warunkar who has won National Masters’ Titles in all age groups in the past.
The overall performance of Mumbai and Maharashtra players was very good, with many other players winning either one ,two or three medals. They are, Shilpa Joshi ( 2 G,1 S), Yogesh Desai ( 2 G), Sunil Babras ( 2 G,), Naveen Salian ( 2 G), P. G.Kelkar ( 1G,2 S), Mangal Saraf ( 1 G, 1 S), Ulhas Shirke( 1G, 1 B), Rajesh Singh (1G, 1B), Sadiya Vanjara ( 1S,1B), Rajeshwari Mehtre (2 B), Atmaram Gangarde(3 B), Pinakin Sampat ( 1 S, 1B), Santosh Jain ( 1S), Swati Agharkar(1 S), Sunita Dhatingan(1 S), Kapil Kumar( 1 S), Shivpriya( 1 S, 1 B), Satish Kulkarni (1S), A.M.Warunkar ( 1 S), Rajesh Mudam( 1B), Anil Rasam ( 2B), Neeta Kulkarni ( 1B), Percy Mehta (1B), Manisha Pradhan (1B),Ashok Kalambe (1B), Ranjana Patki ( 1B), Swati Thube( 1B), Snehal Bhole (1B) & Suhas Rane ( 1 B) .
The tournament which was expected to attract entries from other commonwealth countries, received cold response from them. Very few players from outside India were noticed. However, the participation of players from India was reasonably good, in spite of high charges of registration fees. So, it gave the feeling of playing just another National Masters’ Championship. The attendance of players from southern states was good, which is generally missing in the National Masters’ championship.
On the penultimate day, the organisers had arranged a grand felicitation for players who had won medals for India at the World Masters’ TT Championship, held earlier this year, at Muscat. There was a Gala dinner near poolside for all the players, on this occasion.During this function, the organisers feliciatated only 10 medal winners and left out 6 others, who were very much present there. This resulted in sharp reactions coming from players on social media, against the biggest lapse from organisers. However, former Champion and International TT Player Nadini Kulkarni showed a fine gesture by presenting nicely packed attractive Golden mementos to all the 16 medal winners of the World Veterans’ Championship, who were present there. She came all the way from Pune for the purose.
Only good thing about this tournament was announcement of Prize Money to the Winners and runners–up in all events. But, the amount has yet to reach them.The trophies presented were good; but presenting only one trophy to doubles pair disappointed the other player. The schedule on the the final day was delayed for the reasons best known to the organisers. All in all, it was a good attempt to host a big tournament in India for Masters.However, they have to learn from their mistakes. And next time, it should be a big and grand tourney for Masters, who deserve it the most, for their enthusiasm and spirit in their advancing age.