PANAJI

 

Riya Gopi, Urvi Surlekar, Najida Sheikh and Simran Kubal emerged winners in the mini cadets, cadets, sub junior and junior girls singles categories respectively, at the 8th Late Ramacanta V.P. Dharwatkar Memorial Table Tennis Tournament organised by Panjim Table Tennis Club in collaboration with the Sports Authority of Goa.

 

In the Girls events finals held at Indoor stadium, Campal, Riya Gopi cruised past Samaira Soares 11-6, 11-6, 11-4 to lift the mini cadets girls trophy. In cadets girls finals, Urvi Surlekar registered a hard fought 2-11, 12-10, 11-6, 11-7 win over Sunidhi Sawaikar to emerge victorious. Najida Sheikh was in great nick in the Sub Junior Girls finals and played a controlled game to register an upset 11-6, 11-5, 11-8 win over top seed Simran Kubal and walk away with the title. Simran Kubal later made amends for her loss by winning the Junior Girls singles title in a gruelling four set 11-9, 7-11, 12-10, 11-6 win over second seed Aalya Arora. Ridhima Naik and Ruchi  Kirtani emerged as promising players of the tournament, which is annually held in  non ranking format to promote upcoming players in the memory of Late Ramacanta Dharwatkar, a former State Table Tennis player who represented Goa at various Nationals. 

 

Subhash Pandit, former State Table Tennis champion,  Mahendra Dharwatkar and Chaitanya Tarcar, sports promoters, Goa Table Tennis Association officials Nilesh Kirtani and Amey Lawande, chief referee Noel Estibeiro and Panjim Table Tennis Club Executive Committee members Selvyn Godinho (Secretary), Chetan Kavlekar and Sandeep Heble(Vice Presidents) graced the finals.

 

Following is the list of winners: