GOLF
Manu Gandas wins Chennai Open
Manu Gandas, those who have watched him on the golf course, say he has a zen-like approach towards winning and losing.
The 26-year-old from DLF Golf & Country Club, though not in the best of form, showed consistency and composure with N. Thangaraja of Sri Lanka closing-in, to win the Impiger Technologies-Chennai Open golf tournament at the Cosmo-TNGF course on Friday.
Manu scored a convincing four-shot victory with a five-under 67 for a four-day total of 20-under 268 for his fourth PGTI title and a purse of Rs. six lakhs. With the victory, Manu has consolidated himself in third position on the PGTI Order of Merit.
Thangaraja took second place at 16-under 272 following his final round effort of 72.
Bengaluru’s Khalin Joshi (68) and Chandigarh’s Abhijit Singh Chadha (71) took tied third place at 15-under 273 while Karandeep Kochhar (70) finished fifth.
Lying overnight second, Manu started with a chip-in birdie on the first hole and maintained par till the eighth hole. He had his second birdie on the ninth hole. In the back-nine, Manu struggled a bit but maintained his lead with timely birdies on the 13th, 16th and 18th.
Manu said his tee shots were the key to his title. “The most important things for me over the last year have been identifying my shortcomings and the consistency with which I’ve followed my processes. I took a month off from the game during the mid-season break to fully recover from my injuries and that really helped at the end. My driving and tee shots were the best aspect of my game this week. Today my wedge shots were not great, I made silly errors. I did well with the longer putts in the final round. I didn’t look at the leaderboard on day four but instead just focused on my target which was a total of 20-under. I finally managed to achieve it.”
TENNIS
US Open Qualifiers: Yuki Bhambri knocked out in second round
India’s singles challenge at the US Open qualifiers came to an end as Yuki Bhambri was handed a straight-set defeat by Belgium’s Zizou Bergs in the second round.
The 30-year-old went down 3-6, 2-6 to his Belgian opponent on Thursday.
It was always going to be a tricky affair for Bhambri (552) against the higher-ranked Bergs (155), but the Indian managed keep the the scores levelled at 3-3 in the first set.
Things, however, changed quickly in favour of the Belgian as he made it 5-3. Bergs then won his next service to clinch the first set 6-3.
In the second set too, Bergs was better player than the Indian and dominated from the word go and it did not take the former long to pocket the second and final set 6-2.
Yuki, who spent the most of last three years nursing knee injuries and recovering from multiple operations, played his first Grand Slam qualifier earlier this year at the Australian Open, where he lost in the second round of qualifiers.
On Wednesday, India’s highest-ranked men’s singles player, Ramkumar Ramanathan, and Sumit Nagal made early exits after losing their respective qualifying matches in straight sets.
While Ramanathan went down to American teen Bruno Kuzuhara 3-6 5-7 in one hour and 28 minutes, Nagal lost to Canadian Vasek Pospisil 6-7, 4-6.
- PTI
Rutuja losses in the ITF Tennis Tournament in Roehampton; Rachapudi reaches quarterfinal in Mexico
Rutuja Bhosale was beaten 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 by Amarni Banks in the quarterfinals of the $25,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament in Roehampton on Friday.
In doubles, Rutuja and Ankita Raina advanced to the semifinals, with their partners Erika Sema and Mana Ayukawa respectively.
In the $15,000 ITF women’s event in Mexico, Prathyusha Rachapudi won back to back matches to make the quarterfinals.
The results:
- Kamesh Srinivasan
AITA Talent Series Juniors
Aarivraj Khanna and Ananya Gupta won the boys and girls titles respectively in the AITA Talent series under-12 tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex in Delhi on Friday.
Aarivraj beat Aditya Singh, and Ananya beat Zara Kumar, by identical margin of 6-1, 6-3 in the finals. National coach Zeeshan Ali presented the prizes.
Results
- Kamesh Srinivasan
National series under-16
Daksh Kukreti beat Namish Sharma 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 to set up a title clash against Ashwajit Senjam in the AITA National series under-16 tennis tournament at the Singha Sports Academy on Friday.
Daksh also won the doubles title with Kanishk Jetley.
In the girls section, Divya Ungrish won the doubles title with Shaivi Dalal and set up a singles title clash with Kumkum Kumari.
Results
- Kamesh Srinivasan
SHOOTING
National selection trials
Ruby Tomer pipped Simranpreet Kaur Brar 24-23 to top the women’s 25-metre sports pistol in the sixth National shooting selection trials at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Friday.
A malfunction of the pistol in the last series did not give any anxious moments for the 34-year-old Ruby as she had sealed the contest before the last shot that did not fire. Given a second chance, she did miss shooting 10.2 or better for a hit, but it did not matter.
Simranpreet went on to clinch the top spot in the junior event as she beat Vibhuti Bhatia 24-21. However, both the women’s and junior fields were depleted in the absence of qualification topper Rhythm Sangwan (588) and Esha Singh (577).
With the air pistol competition starting for the women, both the shooters had perhaps opted to conserve their energy for the same.
In men’s air rifle at the Madhya Pradesh Academy in Bhopal, Olympian Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar beat NIraj Kumar 17-5 to top a strong field. Pratham Bhadana beat Olympian and former World No.1 Divyansh Singh Panwar 17-13 in topping the junior section.
The results:
10m air rifle:
25m sports pistol:
50m rifle prone:
- Kamesh Srinivasan
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