MSSA promises to end chaos at table tennis tournament

Shirodkar High School's Shreyas Sawant returns to Holly Cross' Vedant Patil during an U-14 table tennis match yesterday

A day after mid-day reported on the shoddy way in which the Mumbai Schools Sports Association's (MSSA) inter-school table tennis tournament was being held in the kabaddi room of the Rajiv Gandhi Sports Complex, Dharavi, the school sports' body assured parents that the tourney will be hosted in a different room in the complex from today.


Shirodkar High School's Shreyas Sawant returns to Holly Cross' Vedant Patil during an U-14 table tennis match yesterday. Pic/Atul Kamble

On Monday, players were being made to play on tables barely a few feet from each other while parents, coaches and other players crowded around the tables while the matches were in progress. The slippery surface of the room also added to the players' woes.

The report led MSSA President Fr Jude Rodrigues to personally visit the venue yesterday and apologised to the parents for the inconvenience caused. However, the scene at the kabaddi room yesterday was the same as Day One of the tournament. In fact, an U-12 match between Shreyas Sawant of Shirodkar High School (Parel) and Vedant Patil of Holy Cross High School (Parel) yesterday was interrupted when Shreyas hit a parent behind him while returning a shot.

The incident led the referee RB Kale to stop play and ask the parent who interrupted the shot, "How can I give a point for this?" Shreyas suffered a minor bruise on the index finger of his playing hand due to the incident but was able to win the next two points to notch a 7-11, 11-13, 11-4, 11-8, and 11-7 victory.

MSSA table tennis secretary Arthur Fernandes said: "We did not have permission today to have the table tennis tournament at the badminton courts as some of the DSO members come to practice there."