Top seed Paritosh Pramanik was stunned by unseeded Gendlal Vaidya.
Ramesh Marulkar and Kartik Lokhande during the doubles match.
Nagpur, Apr 22
Amol Deokar of The Hitavada led the pack of unseeded players into the singles semi-finals as all the top seeds bowed out of the carom meet for mediapersons on the penultimate day at the Patrakar Bhavan Hall on Wednesday.
Ramesh Marulkar and Kartik Lokhande kept The Hiatvada’s flag flying as the duo entered the summit clash of the doubles. The final could well have been an all The Hitavada affair but the combination of Deokar and Anupam Soni threw away the second set after narrowly missing the first one in the other semi-final.
Deokar accounted for two seeds enroute to the singles semis. In the pre-quarter-final, he defeated Sakaal’s fourth seed Anand Deshpande 11-1, 11-1 and then had the better of senior colleague Ramesh Marulkar 9-7, 11-4 in a closely fought quarter-final match.
Gendlal Vaidya of Dainik Bhaskar caused the major upset of the tournament in his maiden entry. He defeated defending champion The Hitavada’s Paritosh Pramanik in a thrilling PQF tie.
Pramanik won the first set 7-7
(1-0) via tie-break but Vaidya bounced back to win the next two 15-4, 12-3 to effect the biggest upset of the day. He had a rather easy outing against an erratic sixth seed Pankaj Najpande of the Lokmat in the quarters winning 10-5, 8-1 in straight sets.
Second seed Pravin Dabli of Vidarbha ki Baat was shown the doors by Jeevak Gajbhiye of Deshonnati. Gajbhiye won 13-5, 12-3. In the pre-quarters, Gajbhiye had beaten Sakaal’s Rajesh Vyawahare in three sets 14-1, 6-7, 8-7.
Chittaranjan Nagdevte of the Lokmat completed the semi-final line-up when he blanked Dilip Thikhile 19-0, 17-0 in a one-sided game.
An in-form Nagdevte defeated third seed Sandip Gadge 13-1, 8-3 in the PQF.
Dabli, earlier in the day, became the first player in the meet to win a set via sudden death. He defeated Dainik Bhaskar’s Sujan Masid
23-0, 8-8 (0-0, tie-break, 1-0 sudden death). When the scores are level at the end of four boards in a set, the game is stretched to a tie-break wherein both the players get three chance to pocket a coin placed in the circle alternatively. If at the end of the tie-break, the scores are still level, the sudden death rule comes into picture. Each player gets a chance one by one.
In the semis, Deokar will take on Vaidya while Gajbhiye plays Nagdevte for a place in the final to be played after the doubles final later in the day.
In the doubles, the top two seeds lived up to their billings. Second seeded combination of Marulkar-Lokhande will play top seeds Nagdevte-Shekhar Mahule for the title. Marulkar-Lokhande defeated Sakaal’s Nikhil Gotmare and Anand Deshpande 9-2, 13-0 while Nagdevte-Mahule had the better of Deokar-Soni 8-6, 14-0 in the semi-finals.
In the doubles quarters, Marulkar-Lokhande beat Tarun Bharat’s Datta Wazalwar-Gadge 6-3, 23-0; Nagdevte-Mahule defeated Dabli-R Nagpure 14-7, 13-6; Deokar-Soni stunned third seeds Lokmat’s Prabhakar Kapshe-Najpande 8-7, 10-8 and Gotmare-Deshpande outplayed Loksatta’s Uday Dindorkar-Ravikant Sane 8-1, 20-0.
The prize distribution function will be held at 12 noon. Sameer Meghe, Chairman, Tirupati Urban Co-operative Bank Ltd, the sole sponsors of the event, will be the chief guest on the occasion.
Ramesh Borkute, bank’s director and Shirish Borkar, President, Nagpur Union of Working Journalists (NUWJ) will be the guests of
honour.
Prabhjit Singh Bachher, Secretary, Vidarbha Carrom Association and Yashwant Chintaley, former carrom player will be felicitated on the occasion for their services rendered in betterment of carrom in the region.
The tournament is being organised by the Sports Journalists’ Association of Nagpur (SJAN) with technical support from the Nagpur District Carrom Association.
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