Federation Cup Kabaddi featuring top 8 teams from national championships to be held in Mumbai from 9 February

Mumbai: Hosts and national champions Maharashtra men face a real test in the Federation Cup Kabaddi Championships starting on 9 February at suburban Goregaon. The tournament, being organised by the Mumbai Upanagar Kabaddi Sanghathana, returns to the meropolis after 11 years, a media release said. With two separate courts for men and women, the event will see the quarter-finalists of the nationals slugging it out for the title. [caption id=“attachment_4289663” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Maharashtra won their first title in 11 years at the 63rd Senior National Kabaddi Championship. AKFI[/caption] The teams in the women’s section are champions Himachal Pradesh, Indian Railways, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab, Haryana and Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. In the mens section the other teams are Services, Haryana, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Indian Railways, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. The tournament will be played on a league-cum-knockout basis with the top two advancing to the semi-finals. On view will be the stars of the now popular Pro- Kabaddi League like Anup Kumar, Manjit Chhillar, Surendra Nada, (Haryana), Deepak Hooda, Wazir Singh, Vikas Dahiya (Rajasthan); Mohit Chhillar, Rajesh Mondal, (Railways); Jeeva Kumar, Shabbir Bapu, (Karnataka); Pardeep Narwal (Uttarakhand) besides the home favourites Girish Ernak, and Nitin Madane. Asian Games gold medallist Abhilasha Mhatre will spearhead the hosts’ campaign in the women’s section. Railways has in their ranks veteran Tejaswini Bai along with Raksha Narkar and Sonali Shingte to deal with the challenge of champs Himachal Pradesh who will rely on Pushpa Devi, Devika Chauhan, Priyanka Negi and Pooja Thakur.