Yesterday evening in a tremendous battle of birds against cats, Team Falcons defeated fancied and so far undefeated Team Panthers in the final of the Reebok Goregaon Sports Club GBL 2016 to clinch the title.
Team Falcons Winner of GBL 2016
The finals started as expected with the powerful young Open Doubles Panthers pair of Soumeel Shah and Manish Nair beating the scratch combination of Dinesh Choudary and Rajesh Agrawal 15-3, 15-8.
Falcons pulled it back in the 100+ Doubles with the strong pair of Ashish Kejdiwal and Ajit Shetty defeating George Iype and Dinesh Dhanuka 15-8 and 15-11.
The Mixed Doubles was Falcons all the way with national champion Simran Singhi pairing up with veteran southpaw Tushar Dharaiya. They defeated the Panthers’ pair of Sahil Zota and Vibhuti Mittal 15-6, 15-7 easily.
Young Simran Singhi receiving Outstanding Player of GBL 2016 Award from Mr. Sanjay Sharma, ex-International and renowned coach.
The fourth match of the tie the 80+ Doubles went the way of the Panthers with their captain Rajesh Bhanushali pairing up with Sanjay Khetan to beat the Falcons’ pair of Akshay Bhayani and VYS Vijay Kumar 15-12, 15-9.
With the tie placed precariously at 2 all … both YVS Vijay Kumar and Rajesh Bhanushali returned for their respective teams to play the 90+ Doubles, the deciding match. YVS Vijay Kumar and Himanshu Padia played out of their skins to beat Bhanushali and Sylvester Rodrigues 15-12, 15-5 sparking a huge celebration by the Falcons fans and tem members.
Himanshu Padia of Falcons was declared the player of the tie, while young Simran Singhi was the unanimous choice for the ‘Outstanding Player of the Tournament’.
Earlier in the day Team Pumas beat Team Raptors 3-1 to clinch the third spot.