28th Master TT C’ship
Excelsior Sports Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Aug 28: Abu Rizwan of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department (IA&AD) emerged as the Champion in the 40 plus men’s singles category and won gold in the ongoing 28th Masters National Table Tennis Championships at Sher-e-Kashmir Indoor Stadium, here today.
He took less than 25 minutes to accomplish the task with a 3-0 win over his Uttar Pradesh rival, Rishi Raj Tyagi, boosting his department’s medal tally at the championships.
Opening the game on a bright note, Rizwan controlled the entire final with his crisp forehands and backhand returns. Except for the second game when Tyagi challenged Rizwan somewhat, there was never any threat to the IA&AD man, who accumulated points at ease against the subdued Tyagi. All the medal winners received medals and cash prizes from the chief guest and the chairperson of the Committee of Administrators (CoA), Justice Gita Mittal (Retd), and the guest of honour, S.D. Mudgil, a member of the CoA.
In the men’s 50+ section, Manish Rawat of Maharashtra was down in the title clash with Basab Chaudhri of Indian Audit. After conceding the first game, the Audit man surged into a 2-1 lead. However, Rawat had the last laugh to win the next two and the winner’s trophy.
In comparison, top-seed Meenu Basak did not have to break a sweat against state mate Chandrani Dey Ganguly. Playing her trademark backhand and countering her Bengal opponent, Meenu outplayed Chandrani in the 50+ women’s singles final, adding to her silverware collections.
One expected the showdown in the men’s singles final in the 60+ category between Vinay Chopra of Delhi and Pankaj Sharma of Punjab, the latter who has just broken into the +60 Club. But nothing clicked for the ‘young’ Pankaj as wily Vinay decimated him with the straight-games verdict.
With seven medals from the individual events alone, Maharashtra paddlers have kept the medal-pot boiling at every national championship. Maharashtra also has a good number of team titles to their credit, making them the team to beat. Yet, West Bengal, Indian Audit, Gujarat, Delhi and Karnataka paddlers have been able to breach their domination.
In Men’s Singles 40 plus final: Abu Rizwan (IA&AD) beat Rishi Raj Tyagi (UP) by 11-7, 11-9, 11-6, while in Men’s Singles 50 plus final: Manish Rawat (Maharashtra) trounced Basab Chaudhri (IA&AD) by 11-9, 9-11, 9-11, 11-4, 11-9, in Men’s Singles 60 plus final: Vinay Chopra (Delhi) beat Pankaj Sharma (Pune) by 11-4, 11-6, 11-9, in Men’s Singles 70 plus final: Satish B Kulkarni (Maharashtra) beat Pinakin Sampapt (Maharashtra) by 10-12, 11-8, 11-8, 16-14.
In Men’s Doubles 40 plus final: Abu Rizwan/Kasturi Chakravarthy (IA&AD) beat Amit Modi/Suhas Ashok Rrane (Maharashtra) by 4-11, 11-8, 11-13, 11-6, 11-5, while in Men’s Doubles 50 plus final: Prasad Naik/Manish Rawat (Maharashtra) trounced Rishi Sharma/Laxmanrao Thakre (Gujarat) by11-5, 4-11, 11-5, 7-11, 10-12, in Men’s Doubles 60 plus final: Sunil Babras/Prakash Panjabi (Maharashtra) defeated Pankaj Sharma/Ajay Sharma (Pune) by 11-6, 11-2, 11-9, in Men’s Doubles 65 plus final: Kishore Somani/Gopal Chakraborty (Bengal) beat Percy Mehta/Prakash Kelkar (Maharashtra) by 11-8, 4-11, 11-3, 11-7.
In Women’s Singles 40 plus final: Meenu Basak (Bengal) trounced Chandrani Dey (Bengal) by11-8, 11-6, 11-8, while in Women’s Singles 50 plus final: Sonal Joshi (Gujarat) defeated Rajni Gupta (Pune) by 11-5, 9-11, 11-8, 11-7, in Women’s Doubles 40 plus final: Prasunna Parekh/Shital Shah (Gujarat) beat Chandrani Dey/Mousumi Banerjee (Bengal) by 11-8, 6-11, 6-11, 11-6, 11-9, in Women’s Doubles 50 plus final: Sonal Joshi/Divya Pandya (Gujarat) defeated Shilpa Joshi/Sushma V. Mogare (Maharashtra) by 11-6, 11-9, 11-2, in Women’s Doubles 60 plus final: Swati Suhas Agharkar/Nutan Dhikale (Maharashtra) trounced Indu Sharma/Sunita Mudgil (Delhi) by 14-12, 9-11, 12-10, 11-9.
In Women’s Doubles 65 plus final: Mangal Saraf/Ranjana S Patki (Maharashtra) beat Jyoti Kulkarni/Maria Ingrid D’Sa (Maharashtra) by 10-12, 11-2, 11-2, while in Mixed Doubles 40 plus final: Gaurav Doshi/ Prasunna Parekh (Gujarat) defeated Anjana Rao/ C.R.Satyajit (Karnataka) by13-11, 4-11, 12-10, 9-11, 11-9, in Mixed Doubles 50 plus final: Manish Rawat/Shilpa Joshi (Maharashtra) beat Sanjay Mehta/Neeta Vaishnav (MP) by 11-7, 12-10, 11-3, in Mixed Doubles 60 plus final: Jaswinder Singh Patheja/Mantu Murmur (West Bengal) trounced Ravinder Kumar Sharma/Indu Sharma (Delhi) by 3-2 (7-11, 9-11, 11-5, 11-8, 11-8).
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