Making a comeback this year after a break, seasoned Shweta Parte ( From RBI), a former state player, put up fine show while beating junior Sana Desouza (11-5, 11-3, 11-7) and Shravani Dhapre (11-4, 11-3, 11-2) in straight games to qualify for the women’s singles quarterfinal in the MCF-TSTTA-4-Star District Ranking table tennis tournament, which took off at Borivali’s Mandpeshwar Civic Federation Sports Complex here today.
However,two other juniors, favourites Sampada Bhiwandkar and Ananya Chande made to fight hard by their respective opponents, to join Shweta in the quarterfinals. Sampada got the better of Pranjal Shinde (11-8, 11-9, 13-11), while Ananya downed Pri Shah 11-9, 12-10, 12-10. Incidentally Pri too qualified by virtue of finishing second to Ananya in their group tie.
Another junior, Rishi Mirchandani first struggled to beat Siya Hingorany (11-9, 11-5, 9-11,11-4) but latter made light of error-prone Siddhi Kolekar 11-3, 11-4, 13-11 to book her berth in the quarters. MCF Clubb Star Player Swayam Ibrampurkar qualified with No. 1 position from his group in the Men’s singles event, to play in the main draw tomorrow. Earlier in the morning, MCF Club Committee members were present along with TSTTA Hon. Secretary Samir Bhate during the inaugural ceremony, before the start of this tournament.
Almost 450 participants in various age groups are in the fray in this 5-day event. The highlight of this tournament is that 100 entries have been received only in Men’s 40+ Veterans’ event. The salient feature of the event will be that all the age groups, right from the men’s, women’s singles as well as boys and girls in various age groups, have been divided into groups and will play in the league format before the top two from the respective groups will make the knock out stage.
( All Photos by : Ulhas Shirke)