Mumbai: Srushti S Haleangadi Shining Star of Table Tennis

Mumbai based Srushti S Haleangadi, who is a 10th standard student of Vidya Mandir High School in Dahisar East, started her career in sports at the age of seven at Dahisar Sports Foundation. Within six months, she won her first medal in a promotional Table Tennis tournament held at Juhu Gymkhana. Thereafter, she took keen interest in the game.

In the very first year, she was selected for the Mumbai Table Tennis Team to play at the State Championship at Sangli.

During the second year of her sports career, she was selected for the Maharashtra State Team to participate in the National Championship held at Indore (MP). Since then, she has been representing the Mumbai TT Team & the Maharashtra State-Team regularly.

During 2014-15, she had given a progressive performance at the national level and secured No 2 Rank in India in the Under15 category, and has been selected for the Team India.

As such, she represented the Indian Team at the Thailand Open Tournament. The team won Bronze medal; Srushti lost in Quarter Final in the individual category.

Recently, she represented the Indian Team in the South Asian Championship held at Delhi, in which the team won the Gold medal while she won the Gold medalL in the individual event, thereby becoming the South Asian Champion (U/15 yrs category).

On 20 and 21 June, there was a Mumbai Super League (MSL), where the top 8-Ranking Players of Mumbai were auctioned by 8 Team Owners . Here, Srushti was the highest bidded player among girls. In the said MSL, Srushti was awarded the ‘Best Woman Player of the League’.

Srushti Haleangadi, daughter of Surendranth Haleangadi who is a Sr. Manager in a nationalised bank in Mumbai and Hemalatha Haleangadi, receives full support for her sports activities from her parents in addition to the support extended by her school and the guidance of her coach Sachin Shetty of Sr. Blais TT Academy, Andheri. She commuted daily to Andheri from Dahisar for training, which would be for three hours, and reach home at 10 pm. In spite of this, she has secured 92% in Std IX.

HIGHLIGHTS OF PERFORMANCE—(2014-15):
1. Won the State Championship (U/15) for the second year in a row and has a total of three state championships till date.
2. Won the Gold medal in National Ranking Tournament held at Durgapur.
3. Won the Silver medal in National Ranking Tournament held at Gandhidham, Gujarat.
4. Selected for Mumbai Sub Dist T.T.Team for the 6th year.
5. Selected for Maharashtra T.T. Team for the 5th year.
6. Selected for Maharashtra School T.T.Team (DSO) for the 4th year, with the state team winning the national title in each of these years.
7. This year she is the only girl who has been selected to represent the state’s U/15,U/18 and U/21 girls T.T. Team to play in the Inter State National Championship at Alleppey-Kerala.
8. At present, she ranks 2 in India and in the state also (U/15 girls category).