Navi Mumbai Deanery Table Tennis Champions Cup - A Smashing Result for our Airoli Smashers

November 16th, 2025 was historic and memorable as we saw the first ever NMD Table Tennis Champions Cup (An Inter-parish team table tennis event) being organized on this day at Karde Sports Academy, Panvel. A new team format with a battle of your skills on the table and before the match too when it came to choosing the right players for the right matches. The tournament saw 8 teams participating from 4 Navi Mumbai Parishes which included -St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Church, Airoli -Divya Kripa Church, Kharghar -St. Francis Xavier Church, Panvel -Sacred Heart Church, Vashi

Our chief guest for this tournament was Mr. Jayendra Karde (a former International Table Tennis Player who has represented India across the globe) & it was our privilege to conduct this tournament with him as our chief guest. His energy, passion and love for the sport was beyond words. The tournament kicked off in a group stage format wherein every team would play 2 matches in the group stage. Each match consisted of 3 games -Game 1 Singles -Game 2 Doubles -Game 3 Singles Each game earned the team 1 point and the top 2 teams from each group would qualify and play the semi-finals. After some intense battles in the group stage and some close matches, Airoli Smashers and Vashi Warriors qualified from Group A as the winners and runners up respectively & Smashaholics Kharghar and Airoli Serve-vivors qualified from Group B as the winners and runners up respectively. Group B also featured The Racket City Rockers who formed an all girls team of Priscilla Correa, Abigail Correa, Nishita Dsouza from Divya Kripa Church, Kharghar and Iona Rodrigues from St. Francis Xavier Church, Panvel. The Airoli Smashers included Ajit Fernandes, Pratik Shelke, Ashley Coutinho and Dennies David; Airoli Serve-vivors included Selwyn Santmajor, Augustine Fernandes, Saghayam Nadar and Mouvin Pinto & both teams made it to the semi finals to make sure that STCJ was the only parish to have 2 teams in the semis. Since both teams went head to head in the semis, it meant that 1 trophy was guaranteed for STCJ, Airoli and it was the Airoli Smashers who came out on top with a comfortable victory. The second semi-final between Smashaholics and Vashi Warriors went down to the wire. Vashi Warriors won the first singles game 2-0 and Smashaholics leveled it up by winning the doubles game 2-1 with the 3rd singles game turning out to be the decider. The final game went down till the 3rd set and it was the Vashi Warriors who made it through to the final to set up a rematch of their group stage game with the Airoli Smashers. The finals of the first ever NMD TT Champions Cup had everything and it was just the right script for a fairytale ending for the tournament. Vashi Warriors won the first singles game 2-0 and Airoli Smashers won the doubles game 2-0 to tie things at 1-1 with 1 final singles game left. With both teams experiencing similar situations before, it came down to a lot of mental strength, experience and execution after 4 hours of non stop table tennis action and it was the Airoli Smashers who won the final game 2-0 and they were crowned the champions of the first ever Navi Mumbai Deanery Table Tennis Champions Cup.

We would like to thank Mr. Jayendra Karde (Founder of Karde Sports Academy) and mention a special word of thanks for Mr. Kevin Dias from St. Francis Xavier Church, Panvel for making this tournament successful. The table tennis scene in Navi Mumbai is growing rapidly and 2026 promises to be a year with many more individual and team table tennis events.