Indian sports news wrap, October 26

GOLF

Aditi double bogeys last hole, still shoots 67 to lie 10th in Malaysia

India’s Aditi Ashok spoiled her superb looking round with a double bogey on the closing hole but still shot 5-under 67 to be placed tied 10th after the first round of the Maybank Championship golf tournament on Thursday.

From tied-second at one point she was tied-10th. Thailand’s Jasmine Suwannapura took the lead at 9-under 63.

There was a stoppage in play of over three hours and 45 minutes, but action resumed later and the round was completed.

Aditi, starting on the 10th, bogeyed the 12th but five birdies in next six holes from 13th to the 18th saw her turn in 4-under 32. She added further birdies on first, third and fifth and was 7-under through 14 holes. Three pars and a closing double saw her finish at 67 and four behind the leader.

Play began under sunny skies and hot conditions, but the weather turned cloudy and grey in the afternoon leading to a significant delay in play.

Only 54 players completed their first round before lighting in the area suspended the first round. Eight groups and 32 players were left to complete round one and they did that after the stoppage.

Teeing off in the first group of the day, Thailand’s Suwannapura took the first-round lead well before afternoon storms suspended play.

The two-time LPGA Tour winner shot a new career-low score of 63 at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club, recording seven birdies and an eagle in her 9-under bogey-free round.

It was an impressive feat for the 30-year-old, especially since she was unable to get a full practice round before the tournament began.

-PTI

Shubham Jaglan opens with 1-over on tough day, lies 9th

Shubham Jaglan played some good and smart golf in rather difficult conditions for a round of 1-over 72 and was placed tied ninth after the first round of the 14th Asia-Pacific Amateur Championships on Thursday.

The challenging conditions, which included rain, chill, and strong winds, meant only six players came under par, two others shot par and 10 players including Jaglan carded rounds of 1-over each.

Kazuma Kobori of New Zealand, who had the best individual score of 16-under at last week’s World Amateur Team event in Abu Dhabi, shot 5-under after starting from the ninth, the starting tee on the back nine of the composite course at Royal Melbourne.

Apart from Jaglan, the other six Indians had a rough day, though Yuvraj Singh, starting from the ninth, went 4-over after just six. He fought back with birdies on 17th and fourth but bogeyed fifth and eighth. He did birdie in between on the sixth and ended with 74 and was T-27th.

Raghav Chugh and Krishnav Nikhil Chopra shot 6-over 77 each to be T-51, while 13-year-old Kartik Singh (78) was T-62, Shaurya Bhattacharya (83) was T-98 and Vedant Sirohi (85) was T-107.

Jaglan, 22, a collegiate golfer from University of South Florida, wearing India colours for the second time, dropped two bogeys in the last four holes and was one of the only four players in Top-18 not to get a birdie or an eagle on the 17th and the 18th.

Jaglan, realizing his driving has been somewhat “off” decided to use the big club just three times and relied more on the 3-wood. He had one birdie on each half, and three bogeys on the layout designed by Allister Mackenzie, who has a strong connection with the Augusta National Golf Club.

With mixed feelings, he said, “It was awesome. I thought I played pretty solid all day. The weather was pretty funny. I felt like every time I took my jacket off, it started raining again.

“I thought it was pretty challenging. The wind was there all day. I feel like I adapted pretty good to that.” Australians Billy Dowling and Jasper Stubbs, who hit the opening shot of the Championship, shot 3-under, as did South Korea’s Hyun Uk Kim. The tall Chinese Deng Wenyi shot 2-under and his teammate Ziqin Zhou carded 1-under.

Alexander Yang of Hong Kong and Harry Takis of Australia were even par and then 10 players shot 1-over.

Kobori opened with a par on ninth and then ran four birdies in a row and added a fifth on 17th, his ninth hole and then parred the remaining nine.

Kobori, who turned 22 on Wednesday, is highly experienced and is appearing in his third Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship with a best of T-24 in Thailand last year.

This year he has been in sensational form. A week after topping the WATC individual scores, he is seeking to become New Zealand’s first winner.

Earlier in 2023, he won both the Western Amateur in the US and the Australian Amateur and recorded top-six finishes in both the New Zealand Open and New Zealand PGA Championship. He celebrated his 22nd birthday on Wednesday, a day before the opening round at Royal Melbourne.

The Composite Course this week consists of 12 holes from the West Course and six holes from the East Course and the back nine starts from the ninth.

-PTI

Avani shoots second straight bogey-free 68, lies 2nd in World Amateur golf

India’s Avani Prashanth fired a second straight bogey-free round of 4-under 68 to lie tied second after the second round of individual section at the Women’s World Amateur Team Championships (WWATC) golf tournament in Abu Dhabi on Thursday.

Avani is now 8-under but two shots behind Navaporn Soontreeyapas of Thailand, who shot a brilliant 7-under 65 with eight birdies and one bogey.

Winner of the individual honours at the Queen Sirikit Cup, Avani, who rose to 69th in World Amateur golf rankings following a fifth place finish in the Hero Women’s Indian Open, could move into top-50 if she tops the individual section this week at WWATC.

In the last two years Avani has been phenomenal. Her 39 starts have yielded 11 wins and nine other top-10 finishes for a total of 20 top-10 finishes.

Two of the wins have come against professionals, once each in India and Europe. Five of her 20 top-10s have been in pro events, two of them being full field Ladies European Tour events in Kenya and India.

The other two Indians girls in fray, Mannat Brar (72-74) at T-49 and Nishna Patel (75-80) at T-94, are way down on the leaderboard.

With top two scores being counted for the team title, India who were fourth when play finished on the first day, have now slipped to T-7. Thailand, Australia and Spain are tied for the first place and Korea are fourth. United States and England are tied fifth with India, Germany and Canada at tied seventh spot.

Starting late in the afternoon, Avani birdied Par-3 first, Par-5 eighth and Par-3s on 12th and 15th but also missed a few other chances.

“Coming back without a bogey for a second day in a row is something I am very pleased about,” said Avani, who is tied with Korea’s Kyorim Seo (69-67).

Navaporn is the winner of the Singapore Open amateurs and was a member of the gold medal-winning Thai team at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in June this year. Ranked 266th in the world, Navaporn has been a surprise this week, where the field includes 14 of the world’s Top-20.

They include world No. 1 amateur Ingrid Linblad of Sweden and No. 3 Cayetana Fernandez Garcia-Poggio of Spain. The other top-10 stars are Minsol Kim (KOR) at No. 4, Julia Lopez Ramirez (ESP) at No. 5, Anna Davis (USA) at No. 6, Helen Briem (GER) at No. 7, Lottie Woad (ENG) at No. 9 and Meja Ortengren (SWE) at No. 10.

Cayetana is lying fourth with rounds of 68-69 and Anna Davis (73-68), who won the 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur and competed in seven LPGA Tour events last year, including three major championships, is T-10.

Minsol Kim (KOR) is T-30th and Lindblad, with 71-75, is way down in T-45th place.

-PTI

Abhinav Lohan and Jairaj Singh Sandhu share halfway lead

Faridabad golfer Abhinav Lohan’s second round of four-under 68 propelled him into the joint lead along with Chandigarh’s Jairaj Singh Sandhu at the Rs 1 crore Haryana Open in Panchkula on Thursday.

Jairaj shot a three-under 69 at the Panchkula Golf Club.

Abhinav (67-68) and left-hander Jairaj (66-69), the first-round leader, were tied at the top with identical totals of nine-under 135.

Akshay Sharma, another Chandigarh golfer, continued his hot streak with a second straight 68 to be placed third at eight-under 136.

Besides Jairaj and Akshay, the other Tricity golfer in the top 10 is Angad Cheema who signed for the day’s best score of 66 to be tied fourth at seven-under 137.

TATA Steel PGTI Ranking leader Om Prakash Chouhan too shot a 66 to be placed tied fourth.

The cut went at even-par 144. Fifty-three professionals and two amateurs (out of three) made the cut. Abhishek Kumar of Panchkula was one of the two amateurs to make the cut.

-PTI

Diksha opens Aramco event in tied-22nd place

Eyeing the Ladies European Tour Order of Merit title, India’s Diksha Dagar opened with a solid four-under 68 but it still left her in Tied-22nd spot at the Aramco Series Riyadh here.

American Alison Lee shot a sensational bogey-free 11-under 61 to grab early lead.

A good finish in the individual competition could take Diksha to the top, ahead of Celine Boutier, who is currently only about 78 points ahead of the Indian.

The other Indian in the event, Gaurika Bishnoi, carded even par 72 with four birdies, two bogeys and a double bogey and she was Tied-62.

In the team competition, Team Dagar was tied third. The co-leaders were Team Carlota Ciganda and Team Bronte Law at 21-under. Team Alison Lee, of which Gaurika is a part, was lying tied-ninth at 17-under.

Diksha had five birdies against one bogey and it would seem a fair start on any other day, but with Alison Lee holing 11 birdies and not giving away a single bogey, that score paled in comparison.

Lying second was Australian Minjee Lee at 9-under with 10 birdies and one bogey.

Jana Melichova of Czech Republic, who is in Diksha’s squad in the team competition, shot 7-under and was tied third alongside with seven others on a low-scoring day.

Diksha, starting from the 10th, had a bogey on the 11th, for which she made up with a birdie on the 18th. On her second nine, Diksha birdied the first, second, fifth and eighth to finish at 4-under.

-PTI

TENNIS

Yuki and Julian Cash in quarterfinals

Yuki Bhambri in partnership with Julian Cash beat Anirudh Chandrasekar and Vijay Sundar Prashanth 6-4, 6-2 in the doubles pre-quarterfinals of the €118,000 Challenger tennis tournament in Brest, France, on Thursday.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

TNTTA launches its State-level inter-club league, to begin on October 29

The Tamil Nadu Table Tennis Association (TNTTA) formally announced the launch of the TNTTA-VAVE State-level inter-club table tennis league at a press conference here on Thursday.

The league will commence on October 29 at the Montfort stadium in St. Thomas Mount and will be held on weekends and public holidays at various venues in Chennai.

“The league has been conceived to give players exposure to team environment in a competitive atmosphere,” said TNTTA Secretary Vidyasagar.

There will be five categories – elite, open, sub-juniors, corporates, and social club.

Each team in the elite category, the top-most tier, will constitute five players each from the men’s, women’s, u-19 boys’ and girls’, and u-15 boys’ or girls’ age groups. Seven matches will be played in a tie – five singles for each age group, men’s doubles, and open doubles.

The elite category will have a maximum of 12 teams, open 24, sub-juniors 24, corporates 24, and social club 12.

Around 72 teams comprising more than 400 players are already registered for the league.

Some top players who will feature in the elite category are Amalraj, Balamurugan, P.B. Abhinandh, Preyesh Suresh Raj, and Selena Deepthi.

The league carries a total prize money of ₹6 lakh. The elite champion, runner-up, and semifinalists will receive prize money of ₹1.5 lakh, ₹1 lakh, and ₹50,000 each.

Elite players will be auctioned for the Table Tennis Super League (TTSL) that carries a total prize money of ₹14 lakh.

Vave.life, a Singapore-based Table Tennis promotion organisation, will be the league’s principal sponsor. The league matches will be streamed live on YouTube.

-Team Sportstar

Manish, Madhwin score upset wins enroute to quarters at ITF Davangere Open

On a day when four seeds bit the dust, Manish Sureshkumar and Madhwin Kamath of India created ripples with an upset victory each enroute to the quarterfinals of the ITF Davangere Open Men’s World Tennis Tour.

In the pre-quarterfinal matches played at the Davangere Tennis Association Davangere courts here on Thursday, 24-year-old Manish edged past third seed Digvijay Pratap Singh in a close encounter 7-6 (5), 7-6 (2) while qualifier Madhwin battled past fourth seed Florent Bax of France 7-6 (4), 6-7 (4), 6-4 in a match that lasted 3-hours and 13 minutes.

In the other upsets of the day, Karan Singh showed sixth seed SD Prajwal Dev the door with a 6-1, 6-4 victory while in a minor upset, winner of the last leg Ramkumar Ramanathan brushed aside the challenge of seventh seed Rishab Agarwal 6-0, 6-3.

-Team Sportstar

POLO

Pataudi Cup polo tournament: Achievers Red beats Delta Foundation

Matthew Perry scored seven goals as Achievers Red beat Delta Foundation 9-6 in a league match of the Bhopal Pataudi Cup polo tournament at the Army Equestrian Centre, Delhi Cantonment, on Thursday.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

BASKETBALL

Hansraj Prabhakar tournament: Oxford School beats Bluebells School

Aadil and Soham scored 47 points between them to help host Oxford School to a 67-41 victory over Bluebells School in the senior boys section of the 34th Hansraj Prabhakar basketball tournament at the school courts in E-Block, Vikaspuri, on Thursday.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

TABLE TENNIS

Soham and Riana emerge U-15 champions in UTT National C’ship

Eighth seed Soham Mukherjee continued his excellent form as he beat Rupam Sardar to win the Under-15 boys title in the second UTT National Ranking Championships in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday.

Riana Bhoota showed the skills of a left-hander in good measure in the Under-15 girls final to outsmart top-seed Avisha Karmakar 3-2 and lift the crown.

Soham’s 3-1 win in the all-Bengal final came easy and quick.

Rupam, who put up a semblance of a fight in the third game, squandered two game points in the third, allowing Soham to go 2-1 up. The loss affected his rhythm so much that he faltered in the next, paving the way for Soham to emerge winner.

In the girls final, Riana gave some torrid moments for Avisha, the title favourite. After the first game loss, Riana sized up her opponent’s weakness and played as the situation demanded. She took a 2-1 lead but let slip the fourth game of her hands as Avisha restored parity.

But in the decider, the left-hander was aggressive enough to tame the top seed to finish the job in style.

– PTI

HOCKEY

Gursewak Singh hammered 14 goals to power Round Glass Academy, Punjab, to a 21-1 victory over Government Higher Secondary School, Potanar, Bastar, in a league match of the Kanwarji 51st Nehru junior hockey tournament at the Shivaji Stadium here on Thursday.

BRIDGE

HCL International championship- Asian Games medallist Jaggy Shivdasani, will be in action

Some of the best players in the world like Zia Mahmood of USA, Boye Brogeland of Norway, Mikael Rimstedt of Sweden and the oldest Indian medallist in the recent Asian Games in Hangzhou, the 65-year-old Jaggy Shivdasani, will be in action in the 20th HCL international bridge championship to be staged at the Leela Ambience here from October 31 to November 6.

The championship will offer a total prize purse of Rs.2.6 crore.

About 800 players in 140 teams are expected to compete from USA, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Bulgaria, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Indonesia, Thailand, Kenya, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and host India.

“This championship is not just a competition, it is a celebration of the boundless power of the human mind. It is a platform that elevates the sport, placing it on the global map”, said Kiran Nadar, an internationally acclaimed player who has been instrumental in the development of the game, especially through the HCL championship, over the years..

The championship will have four main events. The Team of Four gold, the Team of Four silver, along with Open Pairs and IMP Pairs events. To mark the 20 years of the championship, there will be a ProAm event on the last day, with amateurs participating in combination with professionals.

-Kamesh Srinivasan