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India's 60th Anniversary Celebrations

India's 60th Anniversary Celebrations

India’s 60th anniversary was celebrated in great style in New Delhi in November 2011. Apart from four teams from different parts of India there were six ICs represented i.e. USA, South Africa, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico and GB. The match format consisted of 4 rubbers with one singles and one doubles in the 35+ and 55+ age groups each. Two round robins of 5 teams each were played to determine the two winners who then played 4 matches of prosets to determine the overall victor.

The event was played on the excellent grass courts of the Gymkhana Sports Club where the players were also staying. This is a beautiful club in a very nice part of town and it was quite fortunate that the event could be held there. The weather was also splendid. The players and partners were entertained twice at the Club once as guests of the IC of India and once of the Gymkhana Club itself. We are very grateful to Gymkhana Club President Air Marshall Verma for his hospitality. Both the President of the IC, Daljit Wallia, and the Secretary, Vikas Singh, also gave dinner parties, the former in the beautiful house of his son and daughter-in-law and the latter at the India International Centre where we were also entertained by a couple of comedians. Lunches were arranged near the tennis courts and we can only say that we were very well looked after by our Indian hosts. We extend them a warm thank you.

In our spare time we tried to see as much as possible of New Delhi, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough time to go and visit other places in the country.
The tournament organisation was in the capable hands of Sanjeev Kassel who in between playing some matches himself ensured that everything ran smoothly. Mexico and GB won their round robins with both teams having a close match against India North and Germany respectively. In a very tight and exciting final watched by a large crowd GB managed to just get past Mexico to win the trophy by three rubbers to one. Our successful team consisted of Daniel Ahl, who only just managed to get to Delhi due to passport problems, Raj Ranawat who really made us feel at home, Tony King, Jeremy Woods and captain Henk Nijeboer.

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