He has struggled a lot to make it to the Finals of the Masters’ TT event for the past few years. It was his bad luck that he lost to some best players in the earlier tournaments, in spite of playing very well. But, this time he was all prepared to take on the challenges from his traditional rivals in this game. With his superb consistent forehand top spin attack, left hander Avinash Kothari won his first title in the Men’s 59+ Singles in the MMTTC 3rd Ranking Table Tennis tournament which concluded recently at Prabodhankar Thackeray Krida Sankul( PTKS), Vile Parle, Mumbai.
It wasn’t that easy this time for Avinash, who battled hard on his way to the finals in the main draw. Avinash first encountered the challenge from Sanjay Dhotre whom he beat 3-2 , followed by his successive wins in quarter finals over Rajesh Mudam 3-2 and then a well desrved win over Sarosh Shroff 3-2 in the semi finals. Both Sarosh and Avinash took the first opportunity to attack. But, Avinash played this match like a master, with a better control during long rallies. In the finals, Avinash faced National Masters’ Champion Anil Rasam and in a thrilling finish he won this match 3-2 to emerge the new 59+ Men’s Champion. Happiest person to watch him win this title was 8 times National Masters ‘ Champion Prakash Kelkar with whom he played for Kalidas, Mulund team and were Runners up in the Men’s 59+ team event, to claim a double.
Prakash Kelkar himself won the Men’s 64+ title in this tournament as predicted, making a hat-trick this season. Prakash beat Arun Dhotre comfortably with a margin of 3-0. In the Men’s 49+ Singles, we witnessed a good match between favourites Kiran Salian and Sameer Bhate with superb rallies. This match was won by Sameer Bhate 3-2. Sameer Bhate and Suhas Rane besides winning their individual singles titles also won the Men’s team Championship 39+ event for PTKS ‘A’ team, thus claiming a double. Earlier, Kiran faced his elder brother Naveen in semi finals, dropping a game to him and also to Ravindra Ekande in quarter finals. Sameer too had to drop a game to Tejas Naik in other semi finals. In the previous rounds Samir struggled to beat Amit Phadke from MCF Club 3-1 with the scores 11-6, 4-11, 11-4 & 12-10. He however, scored an easy win over Urvir Bhayani in the quarter finals.
The finals between Suhas Rane and Suraj Chandrashekhar in Men’s 39+ section, turned out to be anybody’s match in the initial stage, as both the players attacked well during long rallies. Suraj took the first game and raised hopes of his winning. But, Suhas recovered quickly to take the next three games and match, to win the title. Earlier in Semi Finals, Suhas dropped a game to Gurucharan Singh Gill , while Suraj struggled to beat Hormaz Pithawala 3-2, after being 0-2 down and then T.Ramkumar in five set match full of excitemet. Ram Kumar had earlier toppled top seed Vishal Yadav 3-1.
In some other interesting closely fought matches in Men’s 39+ Singles, Anil Sarode beat 3rd seeded Ketan Palvankar 3-0. Pulkesh Gunlla beat 6th seeded Ashish Patankar; while Shashank Raghunath knocked out 5th seeded Sharad Sangelkar.
In Men’s 49+ Singles Ravindra Ekande with his strong backhand strokes overpowered the top spin attack of Santosh Jain and won the match 3-2, while Amit Phadke fought very well at crucial stage to win the decider and match against Jayesh Parmar in earlier rounds. Later, in pre quarter finals, Amit also gave a tough fight to second seeded Sameer Bhate, as after winning the second game on 11-4, he lost the fourth game narrowly on 10-12.
World Masters’ Champion in 70+ Yogesh Desai who won his Men’s 69+ title, also contributed a major share in his team’s ( KRC- KAKA) win over The Titans in semis and PTKS’A’ in finals . No wonder, he was presented with the ‘Player of the Tournament’trophy in memory of Late Shri.Narayan Salian. The other two special awards namely. ‘Upcoming Players of the tournament’ trophies were presented to Shashank Raghuraman and Pushpa Upadhyay. Salian family also donated Rs. 25,000/- to sponsor upcoming Junior from Mumba- Suburbs- Sagar kasture. The cheque was handed over to his brother.
In the Women’s events, favourites Suhasini Bakre, Sadiya Vanjara, Swati Agharkar and Shravani Dhapre displayed their supremacy in their respective age groups, by winning the titles. They also worked very hard as members of the tournament committee, inviting new players to participate at the competitive level. And one of them namely Pushpa Upadhyay even received the award of ‘Best Upcoming Woman Player of the tournament’ Pushpa is trained by Atul Deshmukh from Thane.
Ms. Ruchi Waigankar General Manager, JMD Skoda Motors and sister- in law of Ketan Palwankar was the chief guest and gave away prizes of few events. She had sponsored free towels for all the participants. Rajesh Singh a finest TT player also showed a fine gesture by presenting finest quality T shirts to all participants in this tournament. Among others, who were present as guests of honour were Dr. Nilesh Shah & Premjit Rananavare, Asst Sales Tax Commissioner and Mr. Rajan Waigankar ( Nephew of Late Govind Palwankar) .
The tournament was conducted very well ,offering freebies, including free tea, breakfast on the first day and free nutritious lunch and fruit drink, tea and biscuits to all the participants. Thanks to the combined efforts of all the players in making this tournament a grand success. MMTTC has also announced that their next tournament will be much bigger and interesting for the participants. All the Winners and Runners up received Gift hampers from Max Protein foods. Besides huge trophies, medals the winners, runners-up, semi finalists and also quarter finalists in the individual and team events which attracted more entries, received good cash prizes.
Reacting on the success of this tournament, Mr. Sameer Bhate Hon. Secretary of MMTTC said, “ I am extremely happy to see the wonderful support received from our players, who have come forward to raise the funds required for sponsorship and their response is growing with every new tournament announced. This speaks about the ‘Unity and Strength’ of all veteran players from Maharashtra. We are also happy that majority of the top players who have won Medals at the National and International tournaments in all age groups are playing our tournaments to show their trust in us.”
The results of all Finals in detail are :
Men’s 39+/ 49+ Team Event : PTKS ‘A’( Sameer, Suhas, Abhilash) beat Team ‘Guru’( Guru, Ketan, Saurabh, Rajesh Singh) 3-1 ( Semi Finalists- : Team Elite- Siddhanchal ( Narendra , Sanil, Vishal) & Team NASA ( Kiran, Tejas, Naveen , Suraj)
Men’s 59+ Team Event : KRC ( KAKA- Anil, Rajesh, Yogesh, Pramod ) beat Kalidas ‘A’- Prakash, Avinash 3-1 ( Semi Finalists : Like Minded- Purshottam, Prashant & The Titans- Jogesh, Percy, Atul, Sarosh)
Women’s 39+ Team event : Team Trupti Machve & Sunita Dhatinganbeat Team Swati Agharkar & Shakuntala Markad.
Semi Finalists : 1) Bibiana Lopez & Pushpa Upadhyay 2) Madhavi Sawant & Ashwini Karvande.
Men’s 39+ Singles ( Individual Finals) Suhas Rane beat Suraj Chandrashekhar 3-1 ( Bronze Medalists : Shashank Raghunath & Gurucharan Singh) QF’s : Ramkumar, Sanil Desai, Amol Sarode & Saurabh Mohite.
Men’s 49+ ( Individual Singles Finals) : Sameer Bhate beat Kiran Salian 3-2 ( Bronze Medalists : Naveen Salian & Tejas Naik) QF’s : Ravindra Ekande, Chaitanya Deshpande, Rajesh Singh,Urvir Bhayani.
Men’s 59+ ( Individual Singles Finals) : Avinash Kothari beat Anil Rasam 3-2 ( Bronze Medalists : Sarosh Shroff & Jogesh Motwani) QF’s : Prashant Machve, Rajesh Mudam, Sanjay Mehta & Atul Deshmukh
Men’s 64+ ( Individual Singles Finals) : Prakash Kelkar beat Arun Dhotre 3-0
Men’s 69+ ( Individual Singles Final) Yogesh Desai beat Ulhas Shirke 3-0
Men’s 74+ ( Individual Singles Finl) : A.M. Warunkar beat ZarksisKhandadia
Women’s 39+ ( Individual Singles Final) Sadiya Vanjara beat Swati Thube 3-1 ( Bronze Medalists : Reena Bhagat, Pushpa Upadhyay)
Women’s 49+ ( Individual Singles Final) Shravani Dhapre beat Sunita Dhatingan 3-1( Bronze Medalists : Bibiana Lopez & Trupti Machve )
Women’s 59+ ( Individual Singles Final) : Swati Agharkar beat Madhavi Sawant 3-0
Women’s 64+ ( Individual Singles Final) : Suhasini Bakre beat Ujwala Marathe 3-0.