Indian sports wrap, April 17: Veer Chotrani reaches Hamburg Open squash quarterfinals

SQUASH

Chotrani in Hamburg squash quarters

Indian world No. 47 Veer Chotrani defeated German eighth seed Raphael Kandra 11-8, 11-7, 11-7 in the men’s second round to move into the quarterfinals of the Hamburg Open squash.

However, his compatriots, fifth seed Abhay Singh, seventh seed Ramit Tandon, and former women’s world No. 10 Joshna Chinappa, bowed out in the second round of their matches of the PSA Bronze-level event on Thursday night.

Abhay lost to Sam Todd (England) 9-11, 11-7, 4-11, 2-11, Tandon fell to Balazs Farkas (Hungary) 10-12, 11-4, 5-11, 9-11, and Joshna was beaten by eighth seed Joelle King of New Zealand 11-9, 11-7, 9-11, 11-4.

-PTI

GOLF

Pranavi best-placed among Indians to make the cut at Joburg Open

Pranavi Urs carded a bogey free 3-under 70 in the first round of the Joburg Ladies Open on the Ladies European Tour and was best-placed to make the cut among the five Indians at the event.

At the end of Day 1, she was Tied-21st at the Par-73 Randpark Golf Club.

Tvesa Malik and Diksha Dagar ended the first round at 1-under 72 and were Tied-54th while Avani Prashanth shot 2-over 75 and Hitaashee Bakshi also had a disappointing day with 4-over 77.

Avani and Hitaashee will need to shoot very low rounds to make the cut.

Tvesa, playing her first LET event of the season, was 4-under at one stage through the front nine but finished at 1-under 72 as he gave away a double bogey and a bogey on the 15th and the 16th holes.

Diksha, ninth on the LET Order of Merit, had five birdies, three bogeys and a double in her round of 72.

-PTI

Rayhan makes slow start in Mexico

Rayhan Thomas carded an opening round of even par 72 and was T-60 at the Tulum Championship at the PGA Riviera on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Thomas began his round on the front nine and made birdies on the fourth and eighth holes, along with a bogey on the fifth to be 1-under par at the turn.

On the back nine, Thomas made a late bogey on the 17th to end his day with an even par card with two birdies and two bogeys to be placed T-60 on the leaderboard.

-PTI

Aditi T-59 despite under-par round

Aditi Ashok began her week in Los Angeles with a round of 2-under 70 to find herself placed tied 59th on the leaderboard at the JM Eagle LA Championship on the LPGA Tour.

Aditi began her round on the front nine and had made seven pars before dropping a shot on the eighth hole with a bogey.

From 1-over after 10 holes, she recovered on the back nine, making birdies on the 11th, 16th and 18th holes to pick up three shots and finish at 2-under par, seven shots behind the leader Chizzy Iwai.

-PTI

IGPL South Africa: Red-hot Mane fires flawless 64 to take six-shot lead

Continuing his red-hot form, India’s Udayan Mane shot a flawless eight-under 64 with a hole-in-one to open up a commanding six-shot lead after round two of the AM Green IGPL Invitational South Africa.

Having shot a bogey-free seven-under 65 on the opening day, the Olympian went one better at the Royal Johannesburg’s West Course to move to 15-under, the only player in double digits under par.

Trailing Mane in tied second place are: Manav Shah (65-70), Pukhraj Singh Gill (66-69) and Gaganjeet Bhullar (67-68).

Local favourite Musiwalo Nethunzwi (69-67) was sole fifth, while rookie pro Danish Verma (70-67) and another South African golfer, Alessio Graziani (72-65) were tied for sixth place.

One of the three first day leaders, Milind Soni, suffered a mid-round lapse with a bogey-double bogey show on the 11th and the 12th and carded 73 as he dropped to tied-eighth, alongside Raghav Chugh (69-69) and Karandeep Kochhar (67-71) at 6-under total.

Last week’s runner-up Veer Ganapathy (70-70) was tied 11th with Harshjeet Singh Sethie (70-70), Varun Parikh (70-70) and left-handed Kartik Sharma (69-71) a 4-under total.

The scoring has been rather low with 27 players at par or better after 36 holes and there is one more round to go in the event.

Mannat Brar (74-69) was the best-placed woman player at T-21, as Vidhatri Urs (72-72) slipped to T-25.

Beginning the second day on the Par-5 first, Mane opened with an eagle and then shot a hole-in-one on the Par-3 fifth as he went to 4-under in very quick time.

Another gain on the ninth saw him turn in 5-under. Three more birdies on the back nine gave him a superb 8-under card that carried him to 15-under.

Mane is coming off a third place in Mauritius and his game has been looking sharp.

A natural long-hitter, the big-built Mane is also reaping benefits of a much sharper short game.

Three-time IGPL winner Bhullar is always a threat in any event. More so in recent times in AM Green IGPL.

After a 67 on Day 1, he added a 68 to stay in the hunt.

Meanwhile, Ranjit Singh also landed an ace on the Par-3 16th later in the day.

Ranjit (69-73), however, was back in T-17th place at 2-under total.

Last week’s winner Sachin Baisoya had a rough day.

He dropped back-to-back bogeys early on the third and the fourth and later double bogeyed the 10th.

Baisoya ended with a 2-over 74 card and was T-17, but is capable of hauling himself into the Top 10 with a good final round.

In the team competition, Green Fuels Hyderabad led the standings with consistent performances by all four players—Shah, Verma, Graziani, and Soni.

With the top two cards counting each day, Green Fuels were 18-under and 10 shots ahead of Atri Mumbai, which has Mane in its team.

The third-placed team is Honer Gurugram, spearheaded by Pukhraj Singh Gill.

-PTI

Shubhankar Sharma wins inaugural Boulders Classic

Two-time European Tour winner Shubhankar Sharma delivered a dominating performance to win the inaugural Boulders Classic, in Hyderabad.

Making a highly anticipated return to the DP World PGTI circuit for his first domestic event since December 2021, Shubhankar, also a two-time Asian Tour winner, took control early with back-to-back six-under 66s to open up a two-shot lead at the halfway stage.

The 29-year-old then all but sealed the contest on Day 3 with a mammoth seven-shot lead heading into the final day.

He carded an eight-under 64, a round featuring nine birdies and just one bogey, which also equalled the course record.

He maintained his aggressive yet controlled approach during Friday’s final round to comfortably close out the championship.

– PTI

SHOOTING

NRAI plans to reach out to 7.5 lakh students for 75th anniversary celebrations

The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI), the governing body for shooting in the country, has unveiled extensive plans for their 75th anniversary celebrations.

Providing details of the celebrations planned in the coming days, Pawankumar Singh, Secretary General, NRAI said, “We have year-long celebrations planned. To begin with we have set a target of introducing 7.5 lac (7,50,000) new school students to Shooting, where we will either visit their schools of call them to the nearest range and make them shoot 10-shots each. We will take the help of the Government, the Ministry of Sports as well as all the Shooting Academies and even Local Shooting Clubs across the cities and districts of the country in order to achieve this goal. This will help unearth new natural talent. Apart from this we plan to felicitate all the Arjuna, Khel Ratna, Dronacharya awardees and Olympic medalists in Shooting during the National Championships, as well as the State Awardees during the State Championships. Finally, during the ISSF World Cup Olympic quota event next year in Delhi, we plan to host an exhibition match between our Olympic medalists past and present.”

– Team Sportstar

Published on Apr 17, 2026