SHOOTING

ISSF Junior World C’Ship: Indian shooters win two bronze medals to stay on top

The Indian mixed air pistol and mixed air rifle teams won the bronze medals in the World Junior Shooting Championship in Lima, Peru.

The effort helped India stay on top of the medals table with two gold and five bronze medals. Romania, Taiwan and Germany followed with one gold medal each.

The pair of Gautami Bhanot and Ajay Malik beat the Croats Anamarija Turk and Darko Tomasevic 17-9 for the mixed air rifle bronze.

In the mixed air pistol event, the battle for bronze was between two Indian teams, as Lakshita and Parmod beat Kanishka Dagar and Mukesh Nelavalli 16-8.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

BADMINTON

Young Indian shuttler Raksha Kandasamy wins titles in Croatia and Belgium

Young Indian badminton player Raksha Kandasamy continued her brilliant run as she clinched back-to-back titles in the Croatian International and Belgium Junior tournaments.

The 16-year-old remained unbeaten throughout the two tournaments as she won each of her five games en route to her title wins.

Raksha defeated England’s Leona Lee 21-9, 21-5 in the final of the Croatian International played at Samobor on Sunday. She had earlier defeated Bulgaria’s Stefani Stoeva 21-14, 21-23 in the semifinal and Poland’s Joanna Rudna 21-11, 21-10 in the quarterfinal.

Earlier, Raksha had crushed the challenge from Tammi van Wonterghem of Belgium 21-5, 21-8 in the quarterfinals of the Belgium Junior event.

Ireland’s Siofra Flynn presented a strong fight against Rakha, but the Indian prevailed 21-8, 19-21, 25-23 in their last-four clash.

Raksha beat Germany’s Gloria Poluektov 21-14, 10-21, 22-20 in the final played in the Belgian city of Herstal.

-PTI

Pune’s Chaudhari, Ardey score hard-fought wins

Pune’s Jidnyasa Chaudhari and Arpita Ardey recorded hard-fought victories in women’s singles first-round matches of Shri Nandu Natekar Memorial Maharashtra State Senior Inter District (Team) and State Badminton Championship here.

After losing the first game, Chaudhari bounced back to win the next two to overcome Samprati Pathrabe from Raigad 18-21, 21-9, 21-10 and advanced to the second round.

Ardey overcame Shruti Shankargouda from Sangli 21-17, 16-21, 21-16 in another first round encounter.

-PTI

GOLF

Sharma finishes T-57 as Hidalgo triumphs over Rahm in Spain

India’s Shubhankar Sharma posted a modest final round of one-over 72 to finish in a disappointing Tied-57th place at the 2024 Acciona Open de España.

Sharma, who held the spotlight with three eagles, two of them in the third, also dropped three double bogeys during the four rounds. He dropped a double in the first, third and final rounds, carding 74-70-69-72 to be one-over for the week.

Spaniard Angel Hidalgo secured his maiden DP World Tour title by defeating three-time champion Jon Rahm in a playoff. The duo faced off in an all-Spanish final group alongside David Puig, with both players finishing tied at 14 under par after Rahm’s birdie-birdie finish.

-PTI

MOTORSPORT

Sai Sanjay finishes on podium in British GT Championship

Indian driver Sai Sanjay finished creditable third overall and also made it to the podium in silver class in the GT4 category of the British GT Championship here.

The 21-year Indian driver from Chennai did a commendable job in the last round of the British GT championship, where popular Tamil actor Ajith Kumar will be making his debut in the GT4 next year.

Driving for Britain-based motorsports team Race-Lab, Sanjay qualified P4 overall in the class and finished third overall, in a rare feat by an Indian.

Sanjay, the 2022 Indian national champion in the MRF Formula 2000, drove a McLaren Artura GT4 car in the GT4 Silver category with British driver Callum Davies, and exhibited his driving skills to bag a podium finish.

This is Sanjay’s first year in international GT racing and he is also the first from Tamil Nadu to drive a whole season in British GT races.

-PTI

TENNIS

Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam stroked with ease and retained a calm demeanour right through to knock out third seed Ishaque Eqbal 6-1, 7-6(5) in the men’s first round of the Fenesta National tennis championship at the DLTA Complex on Monday.

The 25-year-old Abhinav, who was ranked a career-best 509 on the ATP computer in 2019 before the pandemic, and has now slipped to 1694, handled the climax well to race to victory from being down 3-5 in the second set tie-break.

Ishaque, quite a fluent player with a remarkable counter-punching style of play, did recover from being down 2-4 in the second set and led 6-5, before Abhinav scotched any further hopes.

In another interesting match, Ajay Malik got past fifth seed Parth Aggarwal in straight sets.

In the women’s section, former National champion and second seed Riya Bhatia was forced to bring out her best game when stretched to three sets by the wiry Joell Nichole.

Third seed Akanksha NItture was teased by Sahira Singh in the first set but recovered to pull through in three sets. Yubrani Banerjee handled the second set tie-break with competence to oust eighth seed Abhaya Vemuri.

Left-hander Aditi Rawat caught the eye as she spanked winners on the slow centre court in accelerating her way past Chandana Potugari for the loss of three games.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

EQUESTRIAN

Jai Singh Sabharwal Wins Gold at Equestrian Premier League Show 2024

The equestrian season in India has begun on a high note with a remarkable achievement of a 14-year-old equestrian rider Jai Sabharwal, from The Amateur Riders’ Club (ARC), securing first position in the Equestrian Premier League (EPL), held in Bangalore.

Jai has been training at ARC for the past six years, where he gets access to international-level coaching while the club also prepares riders who compete and win in events like the Asian Games and the Olympics.

Recently, Jai competed in the Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI) CSI2*-1*-YH Show Jumping competition held at Azelhof in Lier, Belgium, where he won two medals in the CSI1* category.

Along with his horse Carna, Jai overcame a challenging moment just minutes before the 130 cm competition round where he suffered a fall during his warm-up in an attempt to capture the 150 cm jump.

Despite the challenge Jai not only completed a double clear round but did so in the shortest time of 39.16 seconds Jump Off making it to the Gold. 

-Team Sportstar

CHESS

Sujin maintains second spot despite mixed day in world junior blind chess

John Harris Sujin of India suffered a mixed day but still managed to hold on to his joint second place in the boys’ section of the World Junior and Women Chess Championship for the Blind and Visually Impaired on Monday.

Sujin (2.5 points) suffered a defeat against table-topper Racis Michale (3.5) in the round 4, but a win in round 3 over compatriot Rahul Vaghela helped him to maintain his second slot.

The day featured two rounds as the players will have a rest day on Tuesday before getting back in front of the board on Wednesday.

In the girls’ section, India’s Aisha Sainaba and Megha Chakaraborty, an Asian para games medallist, secured joint second slot (2.5 points each) behind leader Lisenko Lubov (4 points).

In round 3, Sainaba and Megha played out a draw to bag half a point each. In the round 4, Sainaba overcame Olena Bondar, while Megha waltzed past Poland’s Bozena Chudoba to clinch full points.

-PTI