Indian Sports Wrap, August 12: Hockey Jharkhand crowned Junior Women National Champions
HOCKEY
Hockey Jharkhand was crowned as the champions of the 15th Hockey India Junior Women National Championship 2025 in Kakinada, after they won the final of Division ‘A’, defeating Hockey Haryana 2-1.
The final day of the event saw dominating performances by Hockey Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh Hockey, as both teams won their respective matches to clinch the title and the bronze medal, respectively.
Hockey Jharkhand’s Sweety Dungdung (10’) and Shanti Kumari (12’) scored in the first quarter to give their team an early lead. Although Hockey Haryana’s Kirty (52’) tried to turn the game in her team’s favour with a late goal, she couldn’t prevent her team from losing 2-1 in the final.
In Uttar Pradesh’ win over Chhattisgarh, the goals were scored by captain Suneeta Kumari (10’) and Manisha Patel (60’).
– Team Sportstar
TENNIS
Aryan Shah beats wildcard in Sofia Chellenger first round
Aryan Shah beat wild card entrant Alexander Donski 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 in the first round of the €54,000 Challenger tennis tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria.
In the pre-quarterfinals, Aryan will play the second seed Duje Ajdukovic of Croatia.
Alternate entrants Anirudh Chandrasekar and Ramkumar Ramanathan went down fighting to the top seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Mate Pavic 6-7(5), 4-6 in the first round of doubles in the $9,193,540 ATP event in Cincinnati, USA.
Rohan Bopanna, in partnership with Ethan Quiinn, also lost 6-10 in the super tie-break against Marcelo Melo and Alexander Zverev.
The results:
$9,193,540 ATP, Cincinnati, USA
Doubles (first round): Marcelo Arevalo (Esa) & Mate Pavic (Cro) bt Anirudh Chandrasekar & Ramkumar Ramanathan 7-6(5), 6-4; Marcelo Melo (Bra) & Alexander Zverev (Ger) bt Rohan Bopanna & Ethan Quinn (USA) 7-5, 3-6, [10-6].
€91,250 Challenger, Todi, Italy
Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Arjun Kadhe & Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Juan Torres & Gonzalo Villanueva (Arg) 6-1, 7-6(6).
€54,000 Challenger, Sofia, Bulgaria
Singles (first round): Aryan Shah bt Alexander Donski (Bul) 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.
Qualifying singles (first round): Sergey Fomin (Uzb) bt Prajwal Dev 6-4, 6-4.
$30,000 ITF men, Bali, Indonesia
Singles (first round): Kabir Hans bt Patricio Alvarado (Ecu) 6-4, 3-6, 6-4; Sidharth Rawat bt Kokoro Isomura (Jpn) 4-6, 6-3, 6-4; S Mukund bt Lucca Liu (USA) 3-6, 4-3 (retired); Philip Sekulic (Aus) bt Atharva Sharma 6-2, 6-2.
Doubles (pre-quarterfinal): Atharva Sharma & Caheer Warik bt Anup Bangargi & Aditya Duddupudi 6-4, 6-4.
$30,000 ITF men, Gijon, Spain
Singles (first round): Jan Sebesta (Sui) bt Amaan Siddiqui 2-6, 7-5, 6-1.
$15,000 ITF men, Singapore
Singles (first round): Filip Peliwo (Pol) bt Manish Sureshkumar 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.
Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Shu Matsuoka & Yuto Oki (Jpn) bt Parth Aggarwal & Aayush Bhat (USA) 6-4, 6-2.
$15,000 ITF women, Astana, Kazakhstan
Singles (first round): Anjali Rathi bt Prathyusha Rachapudi 6-3, 6-4.
– Kamesh Srinivasan
ARCHERY
AAI looking for Archery League sponsors
The Archery Association of India is looking for sponsors for its proposed archery league, scheduled from October 1 to 14.
The league will have six teams, with each side having eight archers, including four from recurve and four from compound. Every team will have two male and two female archers in recurve and compound. There will be two foreigners on each side.
– Y.B. Sarangi
OTHER SPORTS
Special Olympics Bharat partners with Indian Dental Association & Indian Academy of Sports Dentistry
Special Olympics Bharat announced its association with Indian Dental Association (IDA) and Indian Academy of Sports Dentistry (IASD) on Tuesday. The three bodies signed a ten-year memorandum jointly committing towards advocacy and awareness to improve the oral health and sports safety of persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disability (IDD) by collaboration.