Indian sports news wrap, December 18

GOLF

Pranavi Urs fires 4-under 68 to occupy tied fifth place in LET final stage

India’s Pranavi Urs maintained the momentum as she carded a sprightly 4-under 68 in the second round for a tied fifth position at the Ladies European Tour’s Final Qualifier on Monday.

Urs had also scored a 68 in the first round Al Maaden course and the Mysuru girl is now standing at 9-under after her effort at the Royal Golf De Marrakech course.

Singapore’s Shannon Tan also fired a round of 68 to share the fifth place with Urs.

She is three shots behind Mexican Fernanda Lira who produced a round of 71 and leads the field at 12-under-par.

Lira had shot a women’s course record of 62 on day one.

The players are playing two rounds each at the Par-72 course at Royal Golf Marrakech and Par-73 at Al Maaden course.

As Urs shot a bogey free 68 with two birdies on either side of the RGM layout, some of the other Indians also showed some improvement.

Neha Tripathi, who had a 3-over 75 at RGM improved to 6-under 67 at Al Maaden.

She is now 3-under at Tied-25.

Vani Kapoor (73-70) is now tied 37, Tvesa Malik (74-70) is tied 51, Amandeep Drall (75-70) is tied 63, Ridhima Dilawari (74-72) is tied 77, Avani Prashanth (76-71) is tied 85, Jasmine Shekar (75-74) is tied 105, Seher Atwal (77-74) is tied 119, Sneha Singh (83-72) is tied 141, Ananya Datar (80-79) is tied 148 and Durga Nittur (80-81) is tied 150.

After four rounds, the top 65 and ties will play the final round.

The top 20 and ties get a full card for 2024 and those finishing from 21st to 50th ties will get fewer starts.

Starting from the tenth, Urs birdied the 14th and the 16th and then added birdies on the first and second to be 4-under through 11 holes.

But she was not able to convert any more of the chances and parred the rest for a 68.

-PTI

TENNIS

$25,000 ITF women’s tournament seeds

The $25,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament at the MSLTA Centre here would be another opportunity for the Indian players to get better with some quality opposition and enhance their status on the WTA ranking list.

The champion of the Bengaluru event, and the semifinalist thereafter in Ahmedabad, national champion Shrivalli Bhamidipaty will open against Misaki Matsuda of Japan.

The 22-year-old Shrivalli may not be seeded yet, but has reached a career-best rank of 506. With former Davis Cupper and captain of the Billie Jean King Cup team, Vishal Uppal, strengthening her support team, Shrivalli is playing with renewed confidence, matching her potential as a big-game player with the serve and forehand as explosive tools.

The 139th ranked Maria Timofeeva who had a good outing in the Tennis Premier League in Pune will start as the top seed and will face qualifier Humera Baharmus in the first round.

Ekaterina Makarova, Sapfo Sakellaridi and Ayano Shimizu are the others in the top four seeds, with Diana Marcinkevica as the sixth seed. Rutuja Bhosale, Sahaja Yamalapalli and Vaidehi Chaudhari are the only Indians who could get seeded.

Vaidehi meets the finalist of the Bengaluru event, Zeel Desai in the fist round. Only 14 Indians figure in the main draw of 32, including four wild cards and four qualifiers, which should provide a hint about the quality of the field.

It should be another fruitful week for Indian women’s tennis.

– Kamesh Srinivasan

Adil loses doubles in the ITF men’s tennis tournament

Adil Kalyanpur in partnership with Preston Brown of the USA was beaten 6-2, 6-4 by Reece Falck and George Stoupe of New Zealand in the $15,000 ITF men’s tennis tournament in Papamoa, New Zealand, on Monday.

In singles, Adil has drawn second seed Keegan Smith of USA in the first round.

– Kamesh Srinivasan