Mumbai, Feb 20 (PTI) An Income Tax officer by profession and a racket sport aficionado in his time away from the high-pressure job, Siddharth Nandal has clinched the singles as well as the doubles title of the All India Open Championship of Racketlon, a combination sport which requires mastery of four disciplines.
The Mumbai-based officer defeated Vikramaditya Chaufla from Udaipur in the singles final to emerge winner with a scoreline of 20-22, 21-16, 21-8, 7-2 in the event held here from February 16-18. This was his third national title.
In the doubles’ final, the 33-year-old partnered with Nikhil Mansukhani from Mumbai to win 21-6, 21-7, 2-21, 12-3 against the pair of Kunal Singh and Vaibhav Chauhan.
The competition was organised by the Wellington Catholic Gymkhana and featured more than 150 participants.
Racketlon is a combination sport in which players have to compete for one set of 21 points in all four racket games — table tennis, badminton, squash and tennis.
Nandal, who practises for about 3-4 hours at the National Sports Club of India (NSCI) in Worli, had won two gold and one silver medals in the Racketlon World Championships in 2019 and 2022 in Germany and Austria respectively.
“I was a national level player in badminton. I was a state champion in badminton from Haryana. I was representing my state when I was not working,” Nandal told PTI.
“I was (also) playing table tennis also at state level at some point of time during my childhood days. When I learnt about racketlon, I started training for squash and a lot of other things,” he added.
“During the initial phase, I used to play around six hours a day — morning, evening, like 2-3 hours in the morning, 2-3 hours in the evening. But, as and when my responsibility in the department grew, as I got promoted to the rank of ITO, so, now I am devoting, like, four hours of my day to practice,” he added.
Racketlon in India is managed by a Racketlon India Sports Association (RISA), with KK Cheema as its president.
A National Racketlon Centre is being constructed around an area of eight acres of land in Lonavala and is expected to be ready by the end of this year.
Nandal said the sport is witnessing growth by looking at the participants this yar.
“This year, many armed forces personnel had come who were not seen in the last year’s tournament. Many squash professionals, like, who are in the top league of SRFI now. One of them was ranked 15 in India. More and more talent is coming from different sports,” he added.
Both Nandal and Chaufla have represented India at the World Racketlon Championship multiple times.
Chaufla, a former badminton player, has also represented India in the World University Badminton Championships.
Racketlon is a combination sport in which the competitors are required to play four racket sports: table tennis, badminton, tennis and squash.
In the final of the 55 plus category, Krishna Kotak got the better of Sugato Thakur 21-9, 15-21, 11-21, 21-16.
In the 55 plus doubles category, Kotak teamed up with Merwyn Fernandis, a member of the gold-winning hockey team at the 1980 Olympics, to win the title.
Varun Motasha defeated Aayush Bhansali 21-14, 21-11, 6-21, 21-7 in the B category final.
Source: PTI News
