Indian sports news wrap, March 24

Here are all the major updates in Indian sports on March 24.

Representative Image: In the final, Vihaan, who had won the last two tournaments in Gurugram and Dehra Dun, will play Kandhavel Mahalingam. | Photo Credit: GETTY IMAGES

TENNIS

ITF Juniors: Vihaan Reddy beats Daksh Kukreti to reach final

Vihaan Reddy sustained his winning streak as he beat Daksh Kukreti 6-0, 6-4 in the semifinals of the ITF juniors tennis tournament at the Bhilai Steel Sports Complex on Friday.

In the final, Vihaan, who had won the last two tournaments in Gurugram and Dehra Dun, will play Kandhavel Mahalingam.

The girls final will be between top seed Aishwarya Jadhav and Prisha Shinde.

The results

Boys (semifinals): Kandhavel Mahalingam bt Victor Mohanram (Esp) 6-3, 6-3; Vihaan Reddy bt Daksh Kukreti 6-0, 6-4.

Doubles (final): Vatsal Manikantan & Smit Patel bt Victor Mohanram (Esp) & Skandha Prasanna Rao 2-6, 6-4, [10-7].

Girls (Semifinals): Aishwarya Jadhav bt Amodini Naik 6-3, 6-2; Prisha Shide bt Nemha Sarah Kispotta 6-2, 6-3.

Doubles (final): Nainika Reddy & Aanya Choubey (USA) bt Saumya Ronde & Shagun Kumari 6-2, 6-4.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

India wins fifth-eighth play-off match at Asia-Oceania Junior Worlds

Harithashree Venkatesh scored a fighting 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Jinnipa Trachoovanich as India beat Thailand 2-0 in the play-off match for the fifth-eighth places in the Asia-Oceania World Junior under-14 girls tennis tournament in Kuching, Malaysia, on Friday.

In the match for the fifth place, India will play Hong Kong which it had beaten earlier in the league stage.

After winning all three matches in the league, India had lost to Kazakhstan 0-2 in the quarterfinals and thus lost the chance to qualify for the world group stage.

Results: Play-off 5-8: India bt Thailand 2-0 (Harithashree Venkatesh bt Jinnipa Trachoovanich 2-6, 6-1, 6-2; Maaya Rajeshwaran bt Tarita Hongsyok 6-4, 6-3).

-Kamesh Srinivasan

AITA Tennis Tournament Chandigarh - Results

Atharva Sharma beat Neeraj Yashpaul 6-2, 6-3 in the final of the Rs.100,000 AITA men’s tennis tournament at the CLTA Complex on Friday.

Results (final): Atharva Sharma bt Neeraj Yashpaul 6-2, 6-3; Semifinals: Atharva bt Mukul Ramanan 6-3, 6-3; Neeraj bt Abhishek Gaur 6-3, 7-5.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

Mukund Sasikumar beats second-seed Crawford at ITF men’s tennis tournament in Lucknow

Mukund Sasikumar served big to oust second seed Oliver Cawford 7-6(3), 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the $25,000 ITF men’s tennis tournament at the Ekaana Sports Complex on Friday.

Mukund fired 11 aces and converted the two breakpoints he forced in the match to sail through. There was a tussle in the seventh game of the first set when Mukund saved a breakpoint to stay ahead. He served three aces in the tie-break to wrest the initiative. In the second set, he raced to 5-2 and served two aces in the last game to close the contest.

In the semifinals, Mukund will play the champion of the last tournament in Delhi, the third seed Evgeny Donskoy who beat Karan Singh in straight sets.

Karan played well to lead 5-4 in the first set, but Donskoy stepped it up thereafter to race through.

Siddharth Vishwakarma had his chances against top seed Nam Hoang Ly as he led 4-2 and 5-4, but lost the eventual tie-break in the first set. Ly was far too sharp in the second set as he led 5-0, before Vishwakarma made a fight to win three games.

RESULTS

Singles (quarterfinals): Nam Hoang Ly (Vie) bt Siddharth Vishwakarma 7-6(4), 6-3; Eric Vanshelboim (Ukr) bt Vladyslav Orlov (Ukr) 6-4, 6-2; Evgeny Donskoy bt Karan Singh 7-5, 6-2; Mukund Sasikumar bt Oliver Crawford (USA) 7-6(3), 6-2.

Doubles (semifinals): Blake Ellis ((Aus) & Shuichi Sekiguchi (Jpn) bt Rithvik Bollipalli & Niki Poonacha 6-2, 7-6(4); Parikshit Somani & Manish Sureshkumar bt SD Prajwal Dev & Sai Karteek Reddy 7-5, 6-0.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

Women’s ITF: Ankita Raina loses pre-quarterfinals

Fifth seed Ankita Raina was beaten 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 by Ma YeXin of China in the pre-quarterfinals of the $25,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament in Jakarta, Indonesia.

In the Challenger men’s tournament in Biel, Switzerland, Sriram Balaji and Ramkumar Ramanathan were beaten 7-5, 6-3 by Victor Corena and Franko Skugor in the doubles semifinals.

The results

$118,000 Challenger, Biel, Switzerland Doubles (semifinals): Victor Cornea (Rou) & Franko Skugor (Cro) bt Sriram Balaji & Ramkumar Ramanathan 7-5, 6-3;

Quarterfinals: Balaji & Ramkumar bt Marek Gengel & Petr Nouza (Cze) 7-6(6), 6-2; Pre-quarterfinals: Romain Arneodo (Mon) & Sam Weissborn (Aut) bt Arjun Kadhe & Daniel Masur (Ger) 7-6(5), 7-6(5); Balaji & Ramkumar bt Mika Brunold & Dylan Dietrich (Sui) 6-1, 6-2.

€73,000 Challenger, Les Franqueses Del Valles, Spain Doubles (quarterfinals): Anirudh Chandrasekar & Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Sun Fajing (Chn) & Volodoymyr Uzhylovskyi (Ukr) 6-3, 6-4; Purav Raja & Divij Sharan bt David Jorda & Bruno Pujol (Esp) 6-4, 6-3;

Pre-quarterfinals: Anirudh & Vijay bt Sanjar Fayziev (Uzb) & Oleksii Krutykh (Ukr) 6-2, 6-4; Purav & Divij bt Alberto Barroso (Esp) & Marco Trungelliti (Arg) 6-3, 6-7(5), [10-5].

$25,000 ITF women, Jakarta, Indonesia Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Ma YeXin (Chn) bt Ankita Raina 6-3, 3-6, 6-1; First round: Ankita bt Lu Jia-Jing (Chn) 6-4, 6-2.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Luksika Kumkhum & Peangtarn Plipuech (Tha) bt Rutuja Bhosale & Hong Wong (Hkg) 4-6, 6-3, [10-2]; Ma YeXin (Chn) & Moyuka Uchijima (Jpn) bt Leonie Kung (Sui) & Ankita Raina 6-7(5), 6-3, [12-10]

$15,000 ITF women, Monastir, Tunisia Singles (first round): Nina Radovanovic (Fra) bt Jennifer Luikham 7-5, 6-0.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Arabella Koller (Aut) & Anja Wildgruber (Ger) bt Jennifer Luikham & Yang Yidi (Chn) 6-2, 6-4.

-Kamesh Srinivasan

FOOTBALL

Workshop for women match officials starts in Kolkata

The All India Football Federation (AIFF) and Reliance Foundation Youth Sports (RFYS) have joined hands to host a two-day workshop for women match officials here from Friday.

A first of its kind, the RFYS-AIFF women match official workshop has over 30 female officials, gaining key on-field and classroom training across the two days, by AIFF officials.

The referees participating in the workshop are registered under the AIFF from six different centres -- Shillong, Kolkata, Jamshedpur, Aizawal, Hyderabad and Kharagpur.

The workshop is being led by Trevor Kettle (chief refereeing officer) and Maria Rebello (course director and referees committee member) on behalf of the AIFF.

-PTI