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Mayor's Cup from today

By Our Sports Reporter

BANGALORE June 12. Big time table tennis returns to Bangalore with the revival of the Mayor's Cup All India Invitation tournament. The three-day championship, with a total prize money of Rs. 2.78 lakhs, will be held at the Karnataka Government Secretariat Club premises from Friday.

The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) along with the Karnataka Olympic Association (KOA) is conducting the championship, which is being sponsored by the Mayor of Bangalore, C.M. Nagaraj.

The faction-ridden Karnataka Table Tennis Association (KTTA) is embittered in legal hassles and will have no role to play in this tournament, which is being revived after two years. The championship, earlier known as the India Cup, was last held in Bangalore in 1989.

Chetan Baboor and N.R. Indu are conspicuous by their absence in a field of 20 men and 16 women players. But the rest, including PSPB's S. Raman, the top seed among men and Mouma Das in the women's section, will vie for the top honours.

While the men's champion stands to pocket Rs. 60,000 with the runner-up winning Rs. 30,000, the women's winner gets Rs. 40,000 with the losing finalist emerging richer by Rs. 20,000.

Achanta Sharath Kamal, a promising lad from Tamil Nadu playing for Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB), will be the one to watch out for. The youngster qualified for the main draw of the recently held World Championship at Paris before bowing out to Frenchmen Christophe Legout, ranked 57th in the world.

Chetan Baboor, Mouma Das and Montu Ghosh were the other Indians who made it to the main draw but could not progress further.

Sharath, the India No. 4, is grouped along with another promising youngster Shubham Choudhary of the Railway Sports Control Board (RSCB). Sourav Chakraborty and Ranbir Bose, both from the RSCB stables and ranked fifth and sixth in the country, are the other main contenders for the men's title along with National champion S. Raman.

The women's field is loaded in favour of Mouma, the India No. 2, with veteran Montu Ghosh and Tamil Nadu's T. Pradeepa, both representing PSPB, posing the biggest hurdle.

The players have been divided into four groups, with the top two from each group qualifying for the quarterfinals, to be decided in best of seven games on knock-out basis. The group league matches will be decided over best of five games.

Three tables will be in use for the championship and International umpire from Bangalore, S. Kannan will be the chief Referee.

The Organising Committee have decided to felicitate top paddlers from the State in memory of late K. Nagaraj, the only Indian to reach the quarterfinals of the World Championship. The players to be felicitated are: Ms Usha Sunderraj and Chetan Baboor (both Arjuna awardees), K. Jayanth, B. Saikumar, G.K. Vishwanath (doubles), C.R. Anand (doubles), Vasanth Bharadwaj, B.K. Arun Kumar (juniors), B.M. Ashwini (sub juniors) and Supraja Prasad (cadet) (all National champions) and Ekalavya awardees — Archana Vishwanath, Bona Thomas John and Poorna Rao.

Mr. M.C. Chowhan. Secretary General of TTFI, conferred the Order of Merit recently and re-elected Secretary of the Commonwealth TTA and also the vice-president of the International Table Tennis Federation, will also be felicitated during the championship.

The Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports, Mr. S.S. Malikarjuna will inaugurate the championship at 10 a.m.

The Groupings:

Men: Group A: S. Raman (PSPB), Bhushan Thakur (RSCB), Anal Kashyap (PSPB), Nupur Santra (RSCB), D.N. Guru Prasad (Kar).

Group B: A. Sharath Kamal (PSPB), Shubam Choudhary (RSCB), Rajeev Ghai (IOC), Prithviraj Bose (RSCB), Kunal Telang (Kar).

Group C: Sourav Chakraborty (RSCB), R. Rajesh (LIC), Anirban Nandy (RSCB), Amit Das (CoE), G. Ravishankar (Kar).

Group D: Ranabir Bose (RSCB), Arup Basak (PSPB), Amit Mukherjee (WB), Pathik Mehta (Guj), Uday S Athreya (Kar).

Women: Group A: Mouma Das (PSPB), M.S. Mythili (PSPB), Nandita Saha (RSCB), Navya Ramesh (Kar).

Group B: Poulomi Ghatak (PSPB), Anandita Chakraborty (RSCB), Mamta Prabhu (RSCB), B, Bhuvaneshwari (PSPB).

Group C: T. Pradeepa (PSPB), Vishakha Bijoy (RSCB), Kasturi Chakraborty (PSPB), Mousumi Paul (RSCB).

Group D: Montu Ghosh (PSPB), Kanchan Basak (PSPB), Mithu Paul (RSCB), V. Ranjitha (Kar).

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