Nagpur: Playing well within themselves, Nagpur’s experienced duo of Mahesh Mor and Arun Puranik jumped 10 places up post-lunch to secure the silver medal in the Match Point Pairs event of the All India Open National Ranking Point Bridge tournament, which concluded at the Institution of Engineers Hall on Sunday.The Marwadi cuisine that Mor-Puranik and the 250 national players enjoyed on the concluding day gave the much-needed energy to the Nagpur pair, as they came from nowhere to garner as many as 437 points in the final session to register an emphatic podium finish. Though they missed the yellow metal by just 40 points to the second-seeded pair of Sandeep Thakral and Subhash Gupta, the Nagpur duo toppled almost all the higher-ranked opponents to clinch silver. While the Thakral-Gupta combination won gold, collecting 892.80 points, Mor-Puranik finished second with 852.40 points.Hinganghat father-son duo Basant Kumar and Anurag Mohota finished third, garnering 828.10 points, and on their way to seal the bronze medal, they edged out Saturday’s star Nagpur pair of Shailendra Chhajed and Vijay Deshpande, who took 4th position with 810.80 points.Of the 28 pairs playing the final round of 27 boards, three Vidarbha teammates took the top-four positions. The four-day national bridge tournament was organised by the Vidarbha Bridge Association (VBA) under the aegis of the Bridge Federation of India (BFI).In the duplicate event, team Tornatae, comprising Prasad Keni, Srinivasan, Animesh Raj and Sapan Desai, emerged champions. In the final, Tornatae got the better of Burzen 126-102 to lift the Manohar Tarkunde Cup. The team Burzen members comprised S Dutt, Swapan Some, Samir Basak and Alok Daga. In the third plage tie, Dhampur Sugar Mill outclassed Vedic 55-25 to win bronze.Later, the trophies and cash prizes were distributed by the family members of the Tarkunde, Joshan, Agarwala, Sancheti and Bapuna families. Appreciating the efforts of VBA, the BFI president Prasad Keni allotted the next All India Open National Bridge Tournament to Nagpur in February 2027.Members of the organising committee, including chairman Anil Goenka, S Hastak, Amit Rewatkar, Anilkumar Mohota and M Diwan, worked hard for the success of the tournament.
