Indian sports wrap, January 4: Senthil, Revathi to lead home challenge in Delhi’s first ITF World Tennis Tour J300 Event

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Senthil, Revathi to lead home challenge in Delhi’s first ITF World Tennis Tour J300 Event

India’s top junior players, Senthil Kumar and Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi, will lead the country’s challenge in the boys and girls categories, respectively, at the ITF J300 event, starting January 6 at the DLTA complex here.

Apart from Senthil, who made a number of finals on the ITF junior circuit in season 2024, India’s other top-5 players, Hitesh Chauhan (R3), Arnav Paparkar (R4), and Varun Verma (R5) — have also secured their places in the main draw of the boys tournament.

From among the players from abroad, Nikta Bilozertsev, the world number 87 from Ukraine and Turkey’s Haydar Cem Gokpinar (R111) will also vie for the top honour.

World number 51 Yoana Konstantinova from Bulgaria, world number 71 Eleejah Inisan from France and her compatriot Daphnee Mpetshi Perricard (R73) are the top draws in the girls singles event.

Ada Kumru (R74) and Petra Konjikusic (R75) are the other top-100 players to feature in the tournament.

Rishita Reddy Basireddy is the only other Indian player in the girls singles main draw while several others will strive to make their way from the qualifying event.

The wild cards for the main draws have been awarded to Shanker Heisnam Samarth Sahita, Aarav Chawla and Rian Sharma in boys category and Aishwarya Jadhav, Mahika Khanna,Riya Sachdeva and Aishi Bisht in girls main draw.

The qualifying tournament that is offering eight places in the main draws is currently underway.

-PTI

Matsuyama charges into halfway lead, Bhatia, Theegala way back

Japanese star Hideki Matsuyama charged into a one-stroke lead through 36 holes at The Sentry as he kept up his bold chase to begin his 2025 PGA Tour campaign on a winning note.

The 32-year-old had plenty of reasons to be happy at the Plantation Course on Friday as he snared eighth birdies for a bogey-free second round of 65 and 16-under total to lead from fellow major champion, Collin Morikawa (65) in the season-opening USD 20 million Signature event.

Four players — Corey Conners (66), Maverick McNealy (64), Tom Hoge (68) and Thomas Detry (65) — were tied third at 14-under.

Indian Americans Akshay Bhatia (71-72) and Sahith Theegala (76-68) were T-49 and T-51, while Aaron Rai (68-71) was T-29.

-PTI