Indian sports wrap, January 12: Tamil Nadu, Railways clinch titles at National basketball championship

BASKETBALL

Tamil Nadu, Railways clinch titles at National basketball championship

Champions Tamil Nadu and Railways comfortably defended their title in the men’s and women’s sections respectively in the 74th National basketball championship at the Sidsar Sports Complex on Sunday.

Tamil Nadu men won 80-56 against Punjab, after leading 48-26 at half time. Equally, Railways was assertive in its 86-53 victory over Kerala in the women’s final, after leading 46-36 at the interval.

The ‘Most valuable player’ awards, with a Maruti WagonR car as prize, were bagged by Pranav Prince of Tamil Nadu and Dharshini Thirunavukkarasu of Railways.

The champion teams received five lakh rupees each, and the runner-up, three lakh rupees. Railways men and Tamil Nadu women won the third place and collected two lakh rupees each.

R Sreekala of Kerala and Kanwar Gurbaz Singh Sandhu were presented Rs.50,000 each for their prowess in shooting three-pointers.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

TENNIS

Karman awarded wild card entry for ITF women’s tennis tournament

Karman Kaur Thandi, returning to the professional circuit after more than a year, has been awarded a wild card entry for the $40,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament to be played at the DLTA Complex from Tuesday.

The 26-year-old Karman, who was ranked a career best 196 in the world in 2018, had last played the WTA tournament in Hong Kong in October 2023.

Vaishnavi Adkar, Riya Bhatia and Akanksha NItture were the others to be given the wild cards for the main event.

Only Ankita Raina, Shrivalli Bhamidipaty and Vaidehi Chaudhari could get direct entry into the main draw, in which Darja Semenistaja of Latvia has been seeded No.1.

Another top player, Pranjala Yadlapalli, returning to the circuit after missing the whole of last year, got beaten in the first round of the qualifying event by Misaki Matsuda of Japan.

Five other Indian players, Diva Bhatia, Shefali Arora, Lakshmi Gowda, Yashika Shokeen and Lakshmi Prabha also found it hard against high quality players and failed to win a set between them in the first round of the qualifying event.

The second and final qualifying round will be played on Monday.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

Gray clinches second successive title on Indian soil

Alastair Gray of Britain won his second successive title on Indian soil as he beat Maxim Zhukov 6-3, 6-4 in the final of the $30,000 ITF men’s tennis tournament at the Arera Club on Sunday.

Gray who had won the title last week in Indore, has not dropped a set in 10 singles matches over the fortnight.

It was the eighth singles title in the pro circuit for the 26-year-old Briton who was ranked a career-best 237 in 2022.

The results (final): Alastair Gray (GBR) bt Maxim Zhukov 6-3, 6-4.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

MOTORSPORTS

Ashad Pasha claims triple crown, maiden national title for Pallavi Yadav

Multiple National champion Ashad Pasha clocked the fastest time of the finals and also won a triple crown in the Fmsci Indian National Autocross Championship 2024, organized by Madras Motor Sports Club at the Madras International Circuit, here on Sunday.

Pasha, the 31-year-old Chikkamagaluru driver, who is based in Muscat, added three more National titles to his kitty. Ashad Pasha clocked 4min 05.41sec in the premier INAC1 Open Class C finals and later clinched the Class B titles. His win in Class C though is awaiting ratification following a protest.

In INAC3 stock classes, Amey Desai (Mapusa, Goa), and Kushal Chaudhari (Kolkata) won two titles each. While Desai bagged National titles in the Class A and Class C, Chadhari took Class B and Class E honours.

Pallavi Shamrao Yadav, 43, from Kolhapur bagged her maiden National title winning the Ladies class. Last year she qualified from the West Zone at Goa but could not attend the finals.

Raunak Jana won INAC2 Class E while Nameer Pasha clinched the Amateur Class title. Sravan Kumar Kuttoor of Hyderabad claimed the 4WD Open crown

-Team Sportstar