Goemkarponn desk
Panaji: Sameer Kakodkar and Sandeep Verlekar stormed into the finals of the veteran 55+ men’s doubles event at the ongoing Bandodkar Panjim Gymkhana Open 2024, defeating their rivals Rajnish Dhall and Caetano Fernandes.
The match was fiercely contested and spilled into a super tiebreaker, which Sameer and Sandeep finally won (7-6), (1-6) and (10-8).
144 tennis players have signed up to participate in the seven-day state ranking tournament, which is supported by the Goa State Tennis Association, Panjim Gymkhana and the DB Bandodkar & Sons group. The tournament got underway on April 1. All the matches are being held at the Panjim Gymkhana courts.
In another match, Sachin Dukle reached the finals of the veteran’s 45+ men’s singles category, defeating Dmitry Smirnov (7-5) (6-4).
In the ladies’ singles event, Simran Bundela beat Tashina Singh (6-1) and Aastha overcame a tough challenge from her opponent Atika to defeat her (7-6) (10-8) to reach the semifinals. In another lady’s singles match Tithee Bhoomkar made light work of Archana Desai defeating her (6-0).
In the mixed doubles category, Simran Bundela/Bulu beat Vidhi Naik/Pankaj Naik (6-1), Archana Desai/Prajat Halankar beat Tithee Bhoomkar/Devaansh Naik (7-5), Atika/Lyndon Pinto beat Anna VK/Gary Steele (6-1) while Santosh Gorawar/Marisa Colaco beat Julia Shakirova/Sergey Romanov (6-3).
In the men’s doubles event, Jai Gill/Anurag Agrawal beat Gary Steele/Rishabh Beria (6-1), Jai/Anurag Agrawal beat Ganesh Vernekar/Bhalchandra Gaitonde (6-2), while Santosh Gorawar/Raju Kundaikar beat Pankaj Naik/Sachin Ambre (6-0).
In the boy’s U-18 category, Puneet Fadte defeated Kyan Mavany without losing a single game, while Shay Walke beat Vivaan Agrawal (6-3).
In the Girls u-14 quarter-finals, Tvisha Sardesai beat Sofia Sánchez (6-0), while Bhaavya defeated Ahana Kumar (6-2). In the boys u-14 event, Adianta Devaraya beat Aymer Fernandes (6-1), Arhan Gaunkar beat Adarsh Salkar (6-3), Noah Carvalho beat Avanish Pillankar (6-3), Kyan Mavany beat Shaurya Verlekar (6-3), Vedant Naik beat Claron Alphonso (6-0), Ethan de Ataide beat Christian Fernandes (6-1) and Alec Barreto beat Samik Satardekar (6-1).
