Mumbai, Oct 10: Jimmy Mehta (Jimmy Mehta, Sharad Mhatre, A Rele, Balu Ukidave, A Chakradeo, A Bapat) grabbed the honours on the opening day of the Tolani National Masters Bridge team championship at the Central Railway Auditorium here today.At the conclusion of the sixth round, in the 12-round Swiss League, Jimmy Mehta, with 112 cumulative victory points (VPs), were placed first, one point ahead of favourites India Blues. The eight top teams will qualify for the quarter-final knockout.
Jimmy Mehta and India Blues both made indifferent starts, and were placed fourth and fifth respectively after three rounds. But an inspiring fifth round, where Jimmy Mehta scored 24 victory points to the strong Sunil Machhar's six, helped them leapfrog to second place. They dazzled again in the sixth, with a 20-10 victory at the top table over leaders Monotona, to wrest the lead.
India Blues (Ashok Ruia, JM Shah, K Venkatraman, Jitu Solani, Kamal Mukherjee, Ashok Goel) scored an impressive 24-6 win over Dr Tolani in thesixth round to take their cumulative score from 87 VPs to 111 VPs. Dr Tolani (Dr NP Tolani, Dr S Roy, ARD Sequeira, Ian Concessio, IC Alphonso) crashed from second to sixth place after that defeat.
Monotona (Dipak Poddar, RG Bhiwandkar, Milind Athavale, P Joshi, C Deshpande), who led for a major part of the day, were placed third with 103 cumulative VPs.
Positions (after six rounds)1. Jimmy Mehta 112 2. India Blues 111 3. Monotona 103 & Khandelwal 103 5. Pankaj Kapadia 102 6. ITC 103 & Dr Tolani 103 8. Teloijian Tea Co 97.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.