MCF-4 Star All -Mumbai ranking tournament, hosted by Mandpeshwar Civic Federation at their sports complex at Borivali has invited good competition in all the events including the Veterans’ 40+ Singles event and Doubles event. The Veterans event in particular played late in the evening today saw some tough matches among the competitors in the initial rounds with two seasoned players shown exit door.
Rajesh Shah
Rajesh Shah caused the first upset in Veterans Singles 2nd round, when he knocked out recent World Veterans Consolation Doubles winner Kapil Kumar in five well contested games. Rajesh won the first two games and later conceded the next two, only to recover in the decider to take the game and match. Another favourite Ravi Chopra was toppled by Vivek Bhargava in hard fought games. The deciding game saw Vivek in comfortable lead before winning his third round against his tougher opponent.
Vivek Bhargava
Another good contest was noticed in the 2nd round Veterans Singles match played between Pankaj Harlalka and Gautam Bhatiya. This match too was stretched to five games, with Pankaj using every opportunity to attack in the decider .
Abhay Mehta
Abhay Mehta known for his deceptive strokes had a comfortable passage into the pre quarter finals, after defeating Aroop Das and Premal Dharod in 2nd and 3rd rounds respectively. Pramod had earlier in the 2nd round defeated former national level player Satish Kulkarni . Abhay now meets stylish left hander Prakash kelkar in the pre quarter finals tomorrow. Other seeded players like Rajesh Singh, Dinkar Shelarka and Kiran Salian moved into their next rounds, when last reports were received. Tomorrow’s Veterans matches will be played from 12 noon onwards.