Prakash kelkar and Yogesh Desai both from Mumbai Suburban District put up a good show winning the titles in their respective 60+ and 65+ age groups in the finals of Indian Oil Sponsored Club Emerald 3rd Maharashtra State Ranking Veterans Table tennis Tournament held on Sunday evening under the auspices of MVSTTC. While Prakash kelkar beat Dinkar Selarka in straight game , he had a tough time overcoming the challenge from Dinkar, who fought hard in all the three games.
Yoesh Desai( Ext.Left), Prakash kelkar ( 2nd from Right), Dinkar Selarka( Ext Left)with Jaswant Mehta ( centre) and active members of Emerald Club.
Yogesh Desai who lost the first game to former international Suhas Kulkarni over extra points, rallied splendidly to take the second , fourth and fifth game using his variations to counter his hard hitter opponent. Another Mumbai player Abhay Mehta who entered his second finals, defeating Nashik’s Divyendu Chandorkar and Pune’s Deepesh Abhankar took one game from Top seeded Dr.Nitin Toshniwal from Solapur in the finals of men 40+ singles.
Sunil Babras feliciates Suhas Dandekar
Prakash Kelkar from Mumbai receiving his Gold medal from Sunil Babras.
In the 50+ men’s singles Top seed Sunil Babras from Pune proved his supremacy, when he defeated his Century Warrior team mate Vivek Alwani. In the Men’s 70+ Singles A.S.Shaikh also proved unbeaten in his group. Women’s Singles 50+ section witnessed good match between MCD’s Dr. Anagha Joshi and Pune’s Suhasini Bakre which was stretched to five games, with Suhasini attacking well at the crucial stage to win the decider and match.
National Women’s Veterans Champion Mangal Saraf dropped one game, before overcoming the challenge from Sunanda Rao in 60+ Women’s section, while consistent Sushma Mogre beat Shravani Dhapre to win the Women’s 40+ title.
Sanjay mehta from KRC kandivali in action during his closely contested Semi Final match against Vivek Alwani.
This tournament witnessed some very good matches and also saw a good progress in players , which clearly indicated that a person’s advancing age after 50, does not come in the way of learning new techniques in the game. And, the best examples were Sanjay Mehta ( From KRC, Kandivali), Jitu Mawani( Kamla Vikar , Kandivali) and Navin Salian from MSD.
In the Men’s team event which had attracted 48 team entries from all over Maharashtra, also witnessed the best competition, with King Pong team represented by Rohit Choudhary and Vivek Bhargava emerging Team champions , followed by Century Warriors team represented by Sunil Babras and Vivek Alwani as runners up, losing 1-3 to the champion team. PJ Hindu Gymkhana and Solapur A bagged the losing semi finalist trophies.
The overall tournament was conducted very well by organizers Club Emerald, though it was their first time. Thanks to Mr. Vichare, Mr. Bhoboo, who along with their other colleagues didn’t forget to felicitate their Chairman Jaswantlal Mehta for his strong support, besides felicitating MSVTTC Vice president Suni Babras , Hon.Secretary Suhas Dandekar and Veteran TT players Prakash kelkar & Sunanda Rao for their dedication to this game.