Nagpur: The love for table tennis sport is growing in Maharashtra. This can be vouched by the number of entries confirmed for the 2nd State Ranking Table Tennis Tournament which will be held in Nagpur from August 12.
“This year will have received 900 entries for the State Ranking Competition which is going to be held at Subhedar Hall of Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University, Ravi Nagar,” Adv Ashutosh Potnis, Secretary, Maharashtra Table Tennis Association and Nagpur District Table Tennis Association, proudly announced during a press conference held at SJAN Hall, on Monday.
“This is for the first time in my career as an organiser and official that this number of entries have been received,” added Adv Potnis. This will be the second of the five ranking tournaments scheduled this season with the remaining three to be held at Chandrapur, Nanded and Pune or Thane. “Players have a good chance to earn valuable points from this meet which will help them in getting selected in the Maharashtra team,” he added.
Prizes worth Rs 2.5 lakh would be distributed during the tournament. Nagpur’s international paddler Jennifer Verghese has been seeded top in two age categories — Girls U-17 and Girls Under-19. Similarly, city’s Karan Kashyap (U-11, 4th seed), Purvi Renu (Girls U-11, 6th seed), Ikshika Umate (Girls U-15, 2nd seed and U-17 3rd seed) are also seeded players for the competition which will be held in Under-11, U-13, U-15, U-17, U-19 boys and girls and men and women’s categories.
A team of 25 officials will handle the technical side of the tournament. International referee Mangesh Mopkar will be the chief referee. He will be assisted by Deepak Kanetkar. “Brand new eight table tennis tables will be used during the tournament while four tables will be kept in reserve. In case of overload of the matches, we will utilise the remaining four tables,” stated Adv Potnis.
The press conference was also attended by Vijay Naik, Shekhar Tongo, Mopkar, Kanetkar and MP Kamble.
