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 Three
tournaments in eight days:
ISP never had it so good ...
By Pradeep Vijayakar |
Mumbai: Indian Squash
Professionals, the baby of Mahendra Agarwal, were really
squashing around in April. They organised as many as three
tournaments almost concurrently.
First there was the Maharashtra Top 8 Invitation Championship
at Otters Club from April 6-8. Then from April 8 to 12 the Khar
Gymkhana-ISP Mumbai Open Squash Championships, sponsored by
Ashwini Jewellers and finally from April 12-14,the JVPG Harman
Baisakhi ISP Squash Classic from from April 12-14 at Juhu Vile
Parle Gymkhana. That took the number of tournaments held by ISP to
68--tremendous in a span of 13 years.
The Juhu event sparked a revival of the sport at Juhu Vile Parle
Gymkhana after nearly three years. Thelate Raju Chainani had
persuaded Pankaj Doshi to have a squash camp for kids at Juhu way
back in the 80s.
The club's Harsh Toteja, an Air India cabin crew man, and Anirudh
Desai thought they could whip up some Baisakhi spirit. Baisakhi the
festival when the harvesting seasons starts. They got sponsors
Harman Finochem Ltd. and Steamlined Studio to host a Rs 50,000
event.
The Juhu Vile Parle Gymkhana boasts of the only decent spectators
gallery in the entire Mumbai city where people can sit and watch.
The Cricket Club of India had a wonderful gallery but it was broken
down.
The right-left combination of Neeraj Shirgaonkar and Vikram
Malhotra won the doubles beating Manish Chotrani and Vijay
Sonawane. The latter could have won but Sonavane had an attack of
cramps and that went against them. The duo had earlier won the
doubles at Khar beating Manish Chotrani and Dheeraj Nagpal. The
handicap doubles was won by Shashi Gupta and Sonu Mirani, who
defeated Bipin Batra and Avinash Bhatija 15-12, 12-15, 15-12.
At Otters the Super 8 was won by Khar lad Dhiraj Nagpal
beating Siddharth Samantray. It was at Otters that the ISP saga
began in January 1993 when they held the first-ever tournament
exclusively for professionals. The Leela pro, Chandrakant Pawar,
won beating Gopi Mohite. ISP's second event was the Monarch and
Mudra team event and the first doubles at The Leela courts.
Vinit Chauhan and Pawar won beating Cyrus Poncha and Arif
Paul.
The first ISP ournament winner took home Rs 4,000 from a pool of Rs
25,000. When ISP organised their 50th tournament in 2004, the Hero
Honda Open, the prize money had gone up to Rs 2 lakhs.
Mahendra Agarwal is now tying to speed things up for the 75th event
which could come in July. They are organising a Ranji Gandhi
memorial event which is part of the Mini Olympics in Mumbai.
And in no time they will have made it to the milestone of 75 ... and
after that the century beckons. No wonder they are doing to job of a
federation. Truly the NGO of Squash as they like to call themselves.
Pradeep Vijayakar
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Top Eight invitation
Khar-Gymkhana
ISP Squash
Spectators enjoying the finale of the
ISP event at Juhu Gymkhana
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