SNOOKER
National Billiards & Snooker: Malkeet emerges 6-Red snooker champion, Advani finishes 4th
Malkeet Singh emerged as the National 6-Red snooker men’s champion, beating his RSPB colleague E. Pandurangaiah in the final at the ongoing National Billiards and Snooker Championships in Chennai.
Singh defeated Pandurangaiah 7-5 in a keenly-contested best-of-13 frames summit clash on Saturday.
Earlier, he had come up with a morale-boosting come-from-behind 6-5 triumph over favourite and 26-time IBSF world champion Pankaj Advani (PSPB) in the semifinals.
-PTI
GOLF
Om Prakash Chouhan claim his 11th career title at the S.S.P. Chawrasia Invitational event
Om Prakash Chouhan birdied the final hole to total six-under 282 and secure a one-stroke win to claim his 11 th career title at the S.S.P. Chawrasia Invitational event at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC) course here on Sunday.
Overnight leader Chouhan, who began his final round by gaining a shot, overcame a rough patch – which included four bogeys over the next 13 holes as he struggled with his putting and lost his lead briefly – to hit an accurate approach shot very close to the 18 th hole and effortlessly putted it to pump his fist out of joy. His one-over 73 was good enough to bring him his fourth trophy of the season.
The 37-year-old, hailing from Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, bagged the winner’s purse of Rs 15 lakh to bolster his position atop the Order of Merit as his season’s earnings swelled to Rs 1,13,80,559. He became the first player to cross the Rs 1 crore barrier in season’s earnings on the Professional Golf Tour of India.
“Having closed out a few matches earlier in the year, I had the confidence that I can do it again,” said Chouhan.
American rookie Varun Chopra shot a three-under 69 to take the runner-up spot at five-under 283 after shooting the day’s joint lowest score of 69. It was the second runner-up finish for the 24-year-old.
The scores:
- Team Sportstar
TABLE TENNIS
National Ranking Tournament: Record five-title sweep for Ankolika; Aditya tames Akash for fourth title
Bengal’s Ankolika Chakraborty set an unbreakable record in domestic table tennis when she completed a sweep of all five under-13 titles in the National ranking tournaments with her latest triumph here on Sunday.
By easily dismissing the challenge of Karnataka’s Tanishka Kalbhairav 11-9, 11-5, 11-6, for the winner’s share of Rs. 14,400, Ankolika on a high just like the way she did at Hyderabad, Trivandrum, Vadodara and Vijayawada. Tanishka, a semifinalist at Vijayawada earlier in the week, received Rs. 7,200 for her season’s best performance.
Bengal’s domination of the lower age-group competition continued when Aditya Das claimed his fourth under-13 title of the season. The top seed scored a 11-9, 5-11, 11-6, 11-9 triumph over Tamil Nadu’s Akash Rajavelu. For Akash, this was the third successive final, with the season’s lone title coming at Vijayawada.
In the under-11 section, top Ariv Dutta of Kolkata-based National Centre of Excellence (NCoE) won the boys title, but Assam’s Divija Paul scripted a surprise in the girls’ final.
Dutta battled past Andhra’s T. Sai Maanvith 11-9, 14-12, 10-12, 12-10 for his third title to leave his rival with his second runner-up finish of the week.
Divija, a quarterfinalist at Vadodara last month, bounced back brilliantly and denied top seed Shanaya Tyagi her third title following a thrilling 4-11, 11-7, 9-11, 11-9, 11-9 victory.
The results
-Rakesh Rao
SHOOTING
Vijayveer Sidhu wins on final day as Haryana top medal tally at pistol nationals
Asian Games medallist Vijayveer Sidhu finished on top of a star-studded men’s 25m centre-fire pistol field on the concluding day of the 66th National Shooting Championship for pistol events here.
Haryana finished comfortably on top of the medal tally with 45 medals, including 20 gold at the M.P. State Shooting Academy ranges.
Vijayveer, winner of men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol team bronze at the Asian Games earlier this year, shot 587 to ward off Udit Joshi of the CISF, who finished second with 582.
Paris Olympics quota winner Anish Bhanwala finished third on the same score because of fewer ‘inner-10s’.
The field also included Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar (16th with 575), who was competing for Himachal Pradesh, and Olympian Gurpreet Singh (11th, 578) turning out for the Army.
Former India internationals Omkar Singh (fourth with 582) and Amanpreet Singh (eighth with 580) did better than the Olympians.
Omkar also helped the Indian Navy win the team event, combining with Rajat Yadav and Amit Kumar for a total of 1741. Ankur Goel of Uttar Pradesh won the civilian championship with a score of 573 while Tamil Nadu won the civilian team event.
At the end of the three-week championships, Haryana with a tally of 20 gold, 13 silver and 12 bronze medals were far superior to Maharashtra, which was second with 13 gold, three silver and three bronze.
Punjab was third with 10 gold. Uttar Pradesh topped the civilian medal tally.
-PTI
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