Ontario Table Tennis Championships (2019) were held in Mississauga’s My Table Tennis Club with around 150 top Ontario players taking part from Cities across the Province.
The Tournament’s events were dominated mostly by the Chinese players as can be seen from the list of winners below but the over 55 years event was won by Surinder Sharma who played for Delhi and Haryana at the Indian Nationals at one time in India.
The winners in the major categories were: Open Men’s Singles: Terence Yeung; Open Women’s Singles: Joyce Xu; Over 55 years: Surinder Sam Sharma; Over 40 years: Jia Hao Kevin Shen; Under 18 Boys: Terence Yeung; Under 18 Girls: Joyce Xu; Under 15 Boys: Kevin Guo; Under 15 Girls: Angela Cui; Under 13 Boys: Zelin Ye; Under 13 Girls: Demi Yu Ting Cai; Under 11 Boys: Frederick Zhang; Under 11 Girls: Xiao Li.
Surinder Sharma, who is active in the Indo Canadian Community here stated that winning the Ontario Veteran’s title was not in his dreams at this age without any practice with his busy business schedule. However, he dedicated this winning medal to his late Father who first taught him to hold the racket at their dining table in New Delhi.
Sharma had served as Chairman, Selection Committee, in the Punjab Table Tennis Association and remained Organizing Secretary of both Haryana and Punjab Table Tennis Championships held in Chandigarh in the early eighties when Darbara Singh was the Chief Guest. It is nice to learn that a group of former Indian State players have formed an Indian team here named “Gurus” that stood at the 5 th place in the major League held in Mississauga with over 40 teams.
The other team players are former Delhi player Sanjeev Chopra and former Gujarat star Kartik Iyer. The other regulars in the “Gurus” outfit are Chandru Krishnan and Parminder Saimbhi. This remained a secret so far that Ontario also has good Indian origin table tennis players. Surinder Sharma is keen to hold an Open Table Tennis Tournament for the Indian Community in the coming months so that our children also learn and actively take up this sports.