Indian sports wrap, December 25: Unnati Hooda, Shruti Mundada reach prequarters in senior badminton nationals

BADMINTON

Unnati Hooda, Shruti Mundada reach prequarters in senior badminton nationals

Shruti Mundada, Parul Choudhary and rising star Tanvi Patri upset higher ranked opponents to reach the women’s singles pre-quarterfinals of the Senior National badminton championships here on Thursday.

Shruti packed off seventh seed Jiya Rawat 21-14, 21-9 while Parul got the better of 9th seed 18-21, 21-18, 21-12 to advance to the next round. Tanvi Patri also ended the campaign of eighth seed Isharani Baruah 22-20, 21-19.

Also advancing to the next round was top seed Unnati Hooda, second seed Anupama Upadhyaya, third seed Anmol Kharb and world junior silver medallist Tanvi Sharma.

In men’s singles, Aryaman Tandon upset third seed M Raghu 17-21, 21-11, 21-14 in the round of 32.

Abhinav Garg and Rithvik Sanjeevi S also created upsets to reach the pre-quarters.

Garg got the better of 10th seed Abhinav Thakur 21-19, 21-16 while Rithvik defeated 13th seed Orijit Chaliha 21-15, 21-19.

In the mixed doubles event, Nitin Kumar and Kanika Kanwal upset 6th seeds Kevin Wong CC and Pranavi N 23-21, 21-15.

-Team Sportstar

GOLF

Jeev wins in Colombo; Pukhraj claims IGPL Order of Merit, gets entry to International Series

India’s golf legend Jeev Milkha Singh ended a 13-year title drought after securing the IGPL Invitational Sri Lanka with a perfect finish to the inaugural season of the IGPL here on Thursday.

The 54-year-old, who has not won a pro event since 2012, gave his young rivals a perfect lesson, producing a closing six-under 65 to total 15-under to outwit Aryan Roopa Anand (68) by one shot.

As Jeev won his maiden IGPL title, Pukhraj Singh Gill, despite finishing T-12th, won the IGPL Order of Merit by a razor thin margin over Aman Raj and Gaganjeet Bhullar.

After 11 events carrying Rs 1.5 crore prize purse with Rs 22.50 lakh for the winner, Pukhraj was less than Rs 9,000 ahead of Aman Raj.

Starting two shots behind Aryan, Jeev, who had a modest second day, putted superbly to add to his splendid iron play that saw him hit his approaches to inside 5-10 feet.

At one stage he had five birdies in a row and seven in a span of nine holes between the sixth and the 14th on the Royal Colombo Golf Course greens.

– PTI

Khalin Joshi and Veer Ahlawat take opening day honours at TATA Open

Khalin Joshi and Veer Ahlawat took the opening day honours at the TATA Open, the PGTI’s season-finale, by returning identical cards of seven-under 63, here Thursday.

In round one, one half of the field played its 18 holes at Beldih Golf Club while the other half of the field played its 18 holes at the Golmuri Golf Club. In round two, both halves of the field will switch venues.

Khalin and Veer shot scores of seven-under 63 at Golmuri to be the joint clubhouse leaders as round one could not be completed on Thursday.

– PTI

Published on Dec 25, 2025