Pune: 220 players for The Poona Club Racquet League 2024

Pune, June 27, 2024: A total 220 players will represent 8 teams in the Poona Club Racquet League that will be organised by the Poona Club Ltd on its Table Tennis, TableTennis, Badminton , Squash and Pickleball facilities from June 28 2024.

Sunil Handa, President of Poona Club Ltd and Gaurav Gadhoke, Vice President of the Poona Club Ltd said that Poona Club is the only club in the city to offer its members six different leagues one in cricket, one in Swimming, Snooker, Football, Health and Fitness and one in Racquet Sports with a view of health and recreation of its members , through sports. The Racquet league will bring members on a common platform and help them bond as a team as each match in the tie will be of utmost importance, he added.

The Title sponsor for the event will be Gravittus Foundation (Main Sponsor), Associate Sponsor is Convex.
Ameya Kulkarni, Chairman Racquet Sports Committee of The Poona Club Ltd and Chairman of the League for the past two years added that, The Poona Club Racquet League has grown significantly, with 220 players participating this year, up from 135 last year. This increase in participants makes it one of the largest sporting leagues in club sports in Pune. Additionally, the number of teams has expanded from 6 to 8.

The Racquet league will be played for the fourth time and will have intense competition in the games of Squash, Badmimton, Tennis, Table Tennis and Pickleball. This unique league is formulated by its members and will include about 25 players participating in racquet sports in each team Arnav Sareen(6250pts, Jaguars), Nittin Kirrtane(6250pts, HK Powerhouse), were the two most expensive retained players. While Ranjith Bala(5000pts, ASR Strikers), Tony Shetty(4200pts, Healyos Eagles), Nitya Shah(4100pts, All Stars) traded at the auction. In the auction 220 players were selected to represent eight teams.

Teams included HK Powerhouse (Sunil Handa and Aditya Kanitkar), Oberoi & Neel’ Kings (Verinder Singh Oberoi and Indraneel Mujgule), Manav Avengers (Rupesh Bathia), ASR Strikers(Amit Roplekar, Sarim Khan, Yogesh Anklesaria), Healyos Eagles(Salil Bhargava), Convex Sharks ( Mr. Krishna and Dev Ghuwalewala), All Stars(owned by Mr. Hiren Parmar and Mrunal Shah), Manpreet & GG’S Jaguars (Manpreet Uppal and Gaurav Gadhoke).

A Tie between two teams will consist of 16 Matches including all 5 sports. Players have been auctioned as per their playing abilities in every sport. The league will witness national and international level players in all three sports in action, Mr. Ameya Kulkarni added.

The 1st match in every sport is 11 points, while the 2nd and 3rd match in every sport is 16 points. 4th match in every sport is 31 points. The Team with higher number points at the end of the last match (16th) wins the tie.Golden Point’ will be played to decide the winner if teams are tied on the penultimate points.If tied upon tie points maximum number of game points will be considered for qualification. In the league stage if the tie cannot be decided by difference of point then a draw will be awarded and one tie point each will be awarded to the teams , for a win 2 tie points and 0 for a loss will be awarded. A single player can play/appear a maximum of 5 times in 1 tie but only once in a sport. Badminton Tennis and Table tennis are doubles sport and Squash is singles.

A tournament core- committee comprising of Ameya Kulkarni (Tournament Chairman), Aditya Kanitkar, Mr. Viraf Deboo, Mr. Pankaj Shah, Mr. Sameer Sanghvi, Mr. Kunal Sanghvi, VP Mr. Gaurav Gadhoke, President Mr. Sunil Handa and Mr. Ranjit Pande has been formed for the smooth conduct of the event.