Saurabh Mohite led C team won the PJ Hindu Gymkhana annual internal table tennis Jumbled Doubles League tournament today evening. With their aggregate score of 360 points, they dominated the league matches, with the B team led by Pinakin Sampat securing the second position with 322 points. Mahendra Chiplunkar’s A team and Suhas Kulkarni’s .D team finished with 293 and 287 points respectively.
Winning team Saurabh Mohite XII, with chief guest CKDesaiVice president and Miten Khatau TT Secretary PJ Hindu Gymkhana.
The team matches were more like fun, but every player enjoyed playing their respective matches seriously, for his or her team. In each team there were minimum two female participants and prominent among them were Juniors’ state player Manasi Chiplunkar and Veterans’ Champion Neeta Kulkarni. Former international Badminton player Leroy D’sa and his wife Maria D’sa were also part of this tournament. Among the men, besides the above mentioned players, other seasoned players were Sanjay Nemlekar, Prakash Punjabi, Om Lotlikar, Jayant Kulkarni,Abhay Mehta, Sanjay Mehta, Soham Rane, Rohan Mohite, Jayant Udeshi, Rohan Mohite , JD maheshwari, Rajesh Pandit & Ulhas Shirke.
The first two doubles matches were played among seasoned players, while the remaining four double matches were played among middle order and lower order players. There was tough competition noticed among the upper order pairs, but the middle order and lower order pairs in each team played a crucial role, in pushing their team score ahead. Among the six matches played, if two pairs of a particular team won their match with bigger margin, then they had better chances of scoring , even if they lost remaining four matches narrowly.
B team led by Pinakin Sampat receive their 2nd position prize from VP. PJHG C.K.Desai. Exreme left is former international Suhas Kulkarni captain of ‘D’ team, watching them.
Saurabh Mohite’s team, which led at the end of first round, retained the lead at the end of 2nd and final round, to remain at the top of the table. Saurabh kept on changing the doubles combination during the first two matches and his strategy worked well. For the first match he partnered with Abhay Mehta with Jayant Kulkarni and Ulhas Shirke playing the second match. But, in the second match he partnered with Ulhas Shirke and almost leveled the scores at 20-20 against Mahendra Chiplunkar and Om Lolikar of ‘A’ team. But, the latter won on one extra point 21-20, with mahendra edging the ball at the corner of the table. But, that didn’t matter much for Saurabh’s team, as Abhay & Jayant scored over Sanjay Mehta and Rajesh Pandit, with good backing received from their other team players comprising of Raashi, Vinit, Devang, Mehek, kaushal, Dinesh , Sujit & Amber.
In the final round match, Saurabh’s team began well with Jayant & Ulhas scoring a comfortable win 21-12 over youngsters Soham Rane and Rohan Mohite. With good support coming from Abhay, Saurabh who scored a victory against former international Suhas Kulkarni and his partner State junior player Manasi Chiplunkar . Once again, their other team members in lower order, put up a good show, winning with greater margins and they could easily reach the top position adding 126 points to register the overall top score of 360.
Vice President of PJ Hindu Gymkhana Mr. C.K. Desai was the chief guest and gave away the prizes to the winners. Overall, it was a good competition. Thanks to Mr. Miten Khatau TT secretary of PJ Hindu Gymkhana, for organizing this event.