Mumbai : Nishant Kulkarni shocked top seed Eric Fernandes and fourth seed Shubham Ambre to storm into the men’s final, in the Mumbai Table Tennis Tournament, at the NSCI, Worli, on Wednesday.
Giant-killer Kulkarni was the toast of the day when he first upset Ambre 8-11, 2-11, 5-11, 11-9, 13-11, 12-10, 13-11 in a pulsating quarter-final where he initiated a sensational comeback to win four nail-biting games in a row that all went down to the wire.
In the most absorbing match of the day, Ambre frittered away a 3-0 advantage and two match points in the crucial fifth game and the decider, where he recovered from 6-10 before Kulkarni took it away with a sigh of relief. Later Kulkarni accounted for favourite Fernandes 11-8, 2-11, 7-11, 12-10, 11-5, 11-8.
