Teenagers Snehal Patil and Pranit Upadhyay put up a good show in their respective finals in Men/Women Open and U-15 events in the Vave West Zone Qualifier at Andheri YMCA today. While Snehal faced little resistance from Nitesh Prajapati, Pranit had to drop a game to Tanay Bakshi . However, veteran Mahesh Shetye who won the Men’s 60+ finals, had to struggle very hard to overcome the stiff challenge from Naresh Shah in a thrilling five setter match.
Mahesh had earlier beaten Naresh Shah 3-2 in the group league match and never expected to meet Naresh once again the finals. This time, he was more lucky to win the decider on 13-11. In the finals, Mahesh used his forehand Killer rubber very effectively to avoid long rallies. In the finals of Men’s 70+ Ulhas Shirke scored 3-0 victory over his regular practice partner Milind Moghe.
In the Women’s 35 to 59 age group event final, Siva Priya beat Dr. Reena Bhagat to top this event, while in Men’s 50+ finals Gajanan Parmar scored over Vinod Kumar Chandra to top this group.
The organisers had shown a fine gesture by conducting Para 6 to 10 Men’s and Women’s combined event and these participants displayed their finest skills forgetting their limitations. In this group Gajanan, Shakti and Bittu Kumar qualified for the Vave National Championship with their direct entry. Jagadeep Bhiwandkar from the organising committee had made special arrangements to place young volunteers from MMK College with the permission of the College Principal to pick up the ball during the matches of Para participants.
The overall event was well managed. Thanks to Ms. Sivapriya, who besides participating, helped in the administrative work at the venue and also chief referee Dominic Savio for the smooth conduct of the schedule. Mr. Varad, the founder of Vave controlled the event with his online instructions. The qualifiers were presented with Rs. 10,000 voucher, which they will be able to use for Singaporepr Malaysia packages.The qualifiers will now play in the National level championship during the end of the month, for the selection of Indian team for the Singapore World level TT tourney .