Sri Lanka’s TT veteran

The team of veteran table tennis players from Sri Lanka, scheduled to tour Germany for a fortnight in April and May and play 10 matches against leading German clubs, had Pesi Pestonjee, former president of the Board of Control for Table Tennis in Sri Lanka, as its chef-de-mission, reported the Daily News of Sri Lanka (April 19, 2002) on its sports page. The clipping was sent to Parsiana by Colombo’s Sohrab Panthaky.

Pestonjee’s brief, according to the report, was to get the German clubs to reciprocate the tour by visiting Vanni and north­ern Sri Lanka to popularize the game and assist schools to obtain the necessary equipment. He was to play competitive table tennis after 35 years, notes the Daily News.

Pestonjee: compe­­titive table tennis after 35 years

A top ranking player throughout his career, Pestonjee was the first man to represent Sri Lanka in the World Table Tennis Championships. As president of the Board he took the Sri Lanka team to China and Japan and was instrumental in obtaining all the equipment necessary for staging the SAF (South Asian Federation) games in Colombo with the help of his friend and twice world champion Ichiro Ogimura. The 10 San-Ea tables then acquired are still used for all the major championships in Sri Lanka, notes the article. The newspaper adds that Pestonjee had officiated at the World Championships in New Delhi and was an observer at the Olympic Games in Sydney.