Indian sports news wrap, April 19

Here are all the major updates in Indian sports on April 19.

FILE PHOTO: Indo-Australian pair of Rohan Bopanna (left) and Matthew Ebden (right) reached quarterfinals of Barcelona Open on Wednesday. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

TENNIS

Barcelona Open: Bopanna-Ebden pair reaches quarterfinals

The Indo-Australian pair of Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden reached quarterfinals of the Barcelona Open, an ATP500 event, on Wednesday.

Bopanna and Ebden won 7-6(4), 3-6, [10-8] against the fourth-seeded Croatian pair of Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic and will next face the Mexican-French duo of Santiago Gonzalez and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.

Bopanna and Ebden have won titles in Doha and Indian Wells so far and are currently fourth in the race for a place in the ATP Tour Finals at the end of the season.

-Team Sportstar

Oeiras Challenger: Jeevan-Balaji pair exits in first round

The all-Indian duo of Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and N Sriram Balaji lost in the first round of an ATP Challenger Tour event in Oeiras, Portugal on Wednesday.

The second-seeded Indian pair went down 5-7, 6-3, [7-10] to Polish duo of Karol Drzewiecki and Szymon Walkow in the round of 16 fixture in an hour and 38 minutes.

RESULTS

ATP Oeiros Challenger

Men’s Doubles, 1st Round - Karol Drzewiecki/Szymon Walkow (POL) bt Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan/ N Sriram Balaji 5-7, 6-3, [7-10]; Sander Arends (NED)/Petros Tsitsipas (GRE) bt Vijay Sundar Prashanth/Artem Sitak (NZL) 6-4, 3-6, [10-6]; Igor Zelenay (SVK)/Petr Nouza (CZE) bt Purav Raja/Charles Broom (GBR) 6-2, 6-2

ITF W100 Charleston

Doubles, 1st Round - Prarthana Thombare/Jessy Rompies (INA) bt Carol Zhao (CAN)/Nao Hibino (JPN) 6-1, 6-3

ITF W25 Nottingham

Singles, 1st Round - Amarni Banks (GBR) bt [2] Ankita Raina 6-4, 6-3, Rutuja Bhosale bt [Q] Ingrid Vojcinakova (SVK) 6-1, 6-3

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals) - [2] Ankita Raina/Rutuja Bhosale bt Ingrid Vojcinakova (SVK)/Vlada Ekshibarova (ISR) 6-1, 6-3

ITF M25 Jakarta

Singles, 1st Round - [Q] Yuta Kawahashi (JPN) bt [4] Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-2, retd.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals) - Taisei Ichikawa/Yuki Mochizuki (JPN) bt Parikshit Somani/Kelsey Stevenson (Can) 6-4, 6-4; Ray Ho (TPE)/Sun Fajing (CHN) bt Sai Karteek Reddy/Shashank Theertha 6-3, 6-1

ITF W25 Guayaquil

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals) - Kaitlin Quevedo (USA)/Noelia Melgar (BOL) bt Diva Bhatia/Valentina Vargas (ECU) 6-1, 6-0.

ITF W15 Monastir

Singles, 1st Round - Jennifer Luikham bt Esther Bataille (FRA) 4-6, 6-3, 7-5; Selina Dal (GER) bt [Q] Vaishnavi Adkar 7-5, 6-1.

-Team Sportstar

Sumit Nagal reaches second round of Challenger event in Italy

India’s top-ranked male player Sumit Nagal progressed to the second round of the ATP75 Challenger event Roseto Degli Abruzzi, Italy on Wednesday.

World No.366 Nagal beat fellow qualifier and local player Jacopo Berrettini 6-3, 6-0 and will next face either Edoardo Lavagno, another local qualifier, or seventh-seeded Romanian Nicholas David Ionel.

Jacopo is the younger brother of 2021 Wimbledon runner-up and former World No.6 Matteo Berrettini.

RESULTS

First Round

[Q] Sumit Nagal bt [Q] Jacopo Berrettini (ITA) 6-3, 6-0

Qualifying

2nd Round - [6] Sumit Nagal bt Riccardo Balzerani (ITA) 6-3, 6-3

1st Round - [6] Sumit Nagal bt [WC] Giorgio Ricca (ITA) 6-1, 6-2

-Team Sportstar

Indian teams announced for South Asian under-12 tournament

The All India Tennis Association (AITA) has selected the boys and girls teams for the South Asian under-12 tennis tournament to be staged at the Sheikh Jamal National Tennis Complex, Dhaka, Bangladesh, from May 16 to 20.

Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, apart from host Bangladesh, will be the other teams.

Two teams will qualify for the Asian under-12 event to be staged in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan.

SQUADS

Boys: Vivaan Mirdha, Smit Undre, Rishikesh Mane. Coach Indra Kumar Mahajan.

Girls: Karthika Padmakumar, Srishti Kiran, Niesha Enja. Coach Asha Sharma.

-Team Sportstar

CYCLING

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s son Pankaj to become Cycling Federation of India president

BJP’s Noida MLA Pankaj Singh is set to be declared as the president of the Cycling Federation of India (CFI) on Saturday after he emerged as the lone candidate for the top post.

Not only Pankaj, all the other 24 members of the CFI executive council, will be elected unopposed during the election meeting to be held in Nainital, Uttarakhand, on Saturday.

He will succeed former Punjab minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa, who has become ineligible to contest the elections under the Sports Code as he has served three terms (12 years since 2011) as head of CFI.

Pankaj, son of Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, served as president of Fencing Association of India for a brief period before resigning from the post in April last year, citing his “commitments as a legislator” in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. Incumbent Maninder Pal Singh will also be re-elected as Secretary General for his second consecutive term as he is the lone candidate for the post. Sudeesh Kumar of Kerala will be the treasurer.

One president, one senior vice president, six vice presidents, one secretary general, one treasurer, six joint secretaries and nine executive council members are to be elected in the elections.

The elections for all the 25 posts will be unopposed. Returning officer Justice (retd) RK Gauba on Wednesday declared the final list of contesting candidates.

The election process had started on March 24.

- PTI

GOLF

Sharma returns to action in Japan after a month-long break

FILE PHOTO: Indian golfer Shubhankar Sharma. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

Indian golfer Shubhankar Sharma will return to action after a month’s break as he tees up at the ISPS HANDA Championship, which gets underway Thursday at the PGM Ishioka Golf Club in Omitama, Japan.

The event is the first DP World Tour event to be co-sanctioned with the JGTO in Japan.

Sharma has been given a marquee group as he is grouped with the legend Shingo Katayama, who turned 50 this January, and the Danish veteran Soren Kjeldsen. Katayama, a five-time winner of the Japan Tour Order of Merit, has won as many 34 titles in his career, 31 of which have been on the Japan Tour. His last win came in 2017.

Sharma who has missed three cuts in last four – in between he was T-13 at his home event, the Hero Indian Open – is looking to recover the form that saw him finish T-7 at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at the start of the year.

Sharma, who was 29th in the DP World Tour Rankings in 2022, is already assured of a start in the Open at the Royal Liverpool at Hoylake.

Meanwhile, the Japanese players understand the opportunity is there for the taking as this week’s winner is set to earn a two-year exemption to compete on the European flagship circuit.

One of those looking to seize the opportunity of playing in a DP World Tour event with a home-ground advantage is Rikuya Hoshino.

Hoshino is currently holding a conditional status on the DP World Tour by virtue of being the top three finishers of last season’s JGTO Money Rankings, but he wants to improve on it.

“This is important for me to play in this event and I’m so happy that I can play the course that I know well so I would like to play well and try to win,” said Hoshino, who’s now ranked 144th on the Race to Dubai.

The next generation of European stars are also looking forward to teeing it up at the event.

Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre excited to be visiting a new location as he returns to action for the first time since the Magical Kenya Open presented by Absa.

Meanwhile Rasmus Højgaard is relishing his first event in Japan since representing Denmark in the Olympic Games in 2021, and his return to action for the first time since February following a shoulder injury.

All eyes will be on the South African legend Ernie Els will be aiming to roll the years as he seeks a third career win in Japan.

At 53, the four-time Major winner Els showed he has plenty of gas left in the tank with a couple of impressive results of late, most notably winning the Hoag Classic on the PGA Tour Champions last month for the 76th win of his professional career.

- PTI

Shamim Khan early pacesetter at Ahmedabad Open

Shamim Khan of Delhi struck a five-under 31 to be the early pacesetter at the Ahmedabad Open on Wednesday.

Sri Lankan Mithun Perera, Bangladesh’s Jamal Hossain, Delhi’s Kshitij Naveed Kaul, Faridabad’s Abhinav Lohan and Greater Noida’s Arjun Bhati, were bunched in tied second place with scores of three-under 33.

The first two rounds of the event comprise nine holes each. After 18 holes the cut will be applied. The third and fourth rounds will then comprise 18 holes each. The tournament will be played over a total of 54 holes. The par for the course in the first two rounds is 36.

-PTI