TENNIS-
Host India continued to thrive on the strong game of Shruti Ahlawat to win its second match in the league against Uzbekistan and confirm a berth in the knock-out stage in the Asia-Oceania Junior Billie Jean King Cup under-16 girls tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex on Tuesday.
Shruti won both her singles and doubles matches once again, after captain Archana Venkataraman fielded Riya Bhatia in the first singles without much success.
It was some relief for the hosts to witness Shruti blank Shaknoza Marimova in the second rubber between the No.1 players of the two teams, after Riya had managed to eke out one game from Sabrina Olimjonova.
The doubles combination of Shruti and Niyati Kukreti continued to deliver, as India won the decisive rubber 6-1, 7-5 against Zlata Chinnova and Shaknoza.
India will play Iran in the last league match on Wednesday. The sixth seeded Iran beat Malaysia 2-1, as Mandegar Farzami and Mehraneh Zohourian recovered from losing the first set in the tie-break to win the second set at love and the match tie-break in a thriller 17-15 against Yu Chi Chan and Jo Leen Saw.
In group-B, second seed Australia was surprised in the second singles by Indonesia, but bounced back to clinch the doubles for the loss of four games.
-by Kamesh Srinivasan
SHOOTING-
Parampal Singh Guron shot 120 to make the semifinals, but finished fourth in his group, in men’s skeet in the Shotgun World Cup in Lima, Peru.
Parampal who had shot 73 out of 75 in the first three rounds, dropped three birds in the last two rounds, to be in a shoot-off with six others on 120 for four spots in the semifinals.
Eventually, Nicolas Pacheco Espinosa of Peru beat Federico Gil of Argentina 4-3 in the shoot-off for the gold, after the two had shot 37. Both had 121 in qualification.
The toppers in qualification, Dustan Taylor of the US and Julio Elizardo Dujarric Lembcke of Dominican Republic, with 122 hits, also crashed out without making it to the medal stage in the semifinals.
India did not field women shooters in skeet, which had a small field of 12, leading to eight semifinalists.
-by Kamesh Srinivasan
BASKETBALL-
Tamil Nadu combined individual brilliance with clinical team-work as the nine-time champion scripted a convincing 99-71 win over Uttarakhand in a Group- C men’s contest of the Senior National basketball championships here on Tuesday.
With the win, TN qualified for the second round to be held on Wednesday and Thursday. Similarly, the host women’s side, too, made it to the second round by finishing behind topper Indian Railways in Group-A.
Generally, ties between Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu are filled with action and intensity. Today, it was anything but that as TN ran riot.
From Muin Bek, who was flawless with his three-pointers and lay-ups to A. Aravind, Aravind Kumar and from P. Jeevanantham to P. Baladhaneswar, everyone contributed in equal measure. Uttarakhand, barring Arjun Singh (19 points) who was consistent with his three-pointers, the rest failed to rise to the occasion.
The eight teams (top four in each Group) in men and women have now qualified for the second round, and the next two days–Wednesday and Thursday–will determine the quarterfinalists.
-by Keerthivasan K
TENNIS-
SD Prajwal Dev and Digvijay Pratap Singh were beaten 6-2, 3-6, 10-5 by fourth seeded Koreans, Seong Chan Hong and Cheong-Eui Kim, in the doubles pre-quarterfinals of the $15,000 ITF men’s tennis tournament in Thailand on Tuesday.
-by Kamesh Srinivasan
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