GOLF
Tough day for Indian trio at Asia Pacific, Australian Crowe takes lead by two
Indian golfers Krishnav Nikhil Chopraa, Aryan Roopa Anand and Shaurya Bhattacharya endured by far the toughest day at the 13th Asia Pacific Amateur Championship as but managed to stay inside the top 50.
Chopraa and Aryan carded 2-over 74 each while Shaurya Bhattacharya shot 75.
Krishnav remains the top-ranked Indian at 1-over 217 and was Tied 39th, while Aryan was 2-over 218 and tied 44th.
Shaurya, on the other hand, was 3-over 219 and tied 46th.
The field was led by the 21-year-old Australian Harrison Crowe, a first timer at the Asia Pacific Amateurs. He shot a bogey free 5-under 67 even as some of the other favoured stars, including overnight leader Bo Jin (71) and the second placed duo of Ratchanon ‘TK’ Chantananuwat (76) and Wooyoung Cho (74), dropped a lot of shots.
Bo, trying to emulate his brother who won this title in 2015, slipped to tied second.
China’s 17-year-old Wenyi Ding, the reigning US Junior Amateur champion, took a strong step towards getting two Major berths as he put himself in contention for the AAC, which gives the winner a passage to the Masters and the Open.
Cho, tied second last night, had three bogeys and a double in his first 10 holes. He is tied seventh.
Also tied second after 36 holes is Chantananuwat, who had the biggest fall to tied 19th as he had two bogeys and two doubles in his last seven holes.
Krishnav had a rough start from the 10th, as he bogeyed the 11th, 13th, 15th and 18th holes against one birdie on the Par-3 Island Green 17th. He had two birdies and a bogey on front nine.
Aryan, also starting from 10th, was 4-over after first seven holes, but recovered slightly with three birdies and one bogey in the remaining 11 holes.
“I just got off to a bad start, but tried to recover as much as I could on the second stretch,” said Aryan, the two-time All India Amateur Champion.
Shaurya birdied 11th, bogeyed 14th and 15tn and then on the second nine, he parred only the first and ninth. In between he had three birdies, three bogeys and a double bogey.
Crowe with two birdies on the front nine and three more on the back nine was 3-under and leader by two.
Bo, third at the 2021 AAC, had three bogeys and as many birdies in his 71 and was 11-under alongside debutant 18-year-old Minhyuk Song, who had a colourful card with an eagle, five birdies, one bogey and one double bogey in a 68, was also 11-under.
Tied for fourth were Ding, who is playing his second AAC. After being one-under for the front nine, he had four birdies in a row from 10th to 13th and two more on 15th and 17th, against bogeys on 14th and 18th and just one par on 16th. Japan’s Ryuta Suzuki (70) was tied for fourth with Ding.
-PTI
IGU South Zone Golf Tour: Varun Muthappa in the lead
Varun Muthappa found the course very challenging but he managed to finish on top of the pack on the first day of the IGU Synthite-CIAL South Zone Golf Tour championship at the CIAL Golf Club, Nedumbassery, on Saturday.
The 18-year-old from Bengaluru finished the 18-hole course with a three-over-par (75) and behind him was Mangalore’s Jason Salins (80) in the men’s section. The two-day event concludes on Sunday.
“I think this is the most physically demanding course, even though in Chennai it was very hot, it wasn’t like this,” said Muthappa.
“Here, the grass is a bit thicker so it’s a bit difficult to walk, it’s humid and very hot. And the back nine is probably one of the toughest stretches I’ve played in a long time.”
The results (day one, par-72 course, top three only):
Amateur men: 1. Varun Muthappa (75), 2. Jason Salins (80), 3. Prithviraj Sridhar (84).
Boys: A: 1. Pavan Paruthi (85), 2. Tanmay Bafna & Syed Shayaan Khadri (both 88).
B: 1. Vansh Tyagi (80), 2. Amaey Rajesh Nair (85), 3. Fatehbir Singh (85).
C: 1. Vivaan Ubhayakar (79), 2. Ved Sai Machiraju (82), 3. Nilofer Shivamurthy (85).
D: 1. Adit Veeramachaneni (88), 2. Dhruv Kessireddy (97), 3. Roaan Sandeep Karippil (132).
E (nine holes): 1. Ryan Advik (40), 2 Vivaan Singh (46), 3. Vishwadev Vivek (58).
Girls: A: 1. Aaliyah Laiza Achary (81), 2. Usikala Akhila (93), 3. Garlapati Naveena (3).
B: 1. Gugulothu Amulya (85), 2. Mala Anusha (89), 3. Kavali Haritharani (98).
C: 1. B. Krishna (105).
D: 1. Tanvi Kaur (76), 2. K.S. Arpitha Shaji (112), 3. Vedasri R. Pillai (127).
E (nine holes): 1. Vedika Bhansali (39), 2. Samaira Handa (48), 3. Juno Kalyani (49).
TENNIS
Sriram Balaji and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan missed two match points and were beaten by Jesper de Jong and Max Houkes of the Netherlands 6-2, 4-6, [15-13] in the doubles semifinals of the $53,120 Challenger tennis tournament in Lima, Peru.
Results:
ATHLETICS
Gold for Puneet and Soniya at under-23 athletics championships
Haryana’s Puneet Yadav and Uttarakhand’s Soniya won the men’s and women’s 10,000m gold in the second National under-23 athletics championships which began in Bilaspur on Saturday.
Kerala’s Akash Varghese and AP’s Mallala Anusha won the men’s and women’s triple jump titles.
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