Indian sports news wrap, December 7

Here are all the major updates, results and developments from the world of Indian sports on Wednesday, December 7.

Billiards world champion Pankaj Advani in action | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

BILLIARDS

National Billiards & Snooker: Advani, Chawla, Mehta enter 6-Red snooker Round of 32

World champion Pankaj Advani crushed the challenge of Delhi’s Avinash Kumar to move into the men’s 6-Red snooker knockouts in the National Billiards & Snooker Championships here Thursday.

PSPB’s Advani, who clinched a record 26th ISBF world title in Doha last month, produced a stellar show to win 4-2, including a break of 47 in the third frame to enter the round of 32 at the Nehru Indoor Stadium.

Advani had begun his campaign in style on Wednesday, trumping Sufyan Ahmed of Karnataka 4-0 in a Group A encounter, earning breaks of 41, 44 and 34.

Along with Advani, other favourites such as Kamal Chawla (RSPB), Aditya Mehta (PSPB) and S Shrikrishna (PSPB) also reached the round of 32.

Dhvaj Haria of PSPB recorded a maximum break of 75 in the final frame of his 4-2 triumph over Abhijit Ranade of Maharashtra as he too entered the last-32 stage.

Rakesh Kamaraj is the lone player remaining from Tamil Nadu, and he will take on UP’s Paras Gupta in the round of 32.

In women’s 6-Red snooker, in-form Anupama Ramachandran of Tamil Nadu overpowered Renu Bharkatiya of Madhya Pradesh 3-0.

TN’s Neena Praveen sailed past Sumitra Raj 3-1 in her final group match.

- PTI

SQUASH

Velavan Senthilkumar goes down to world No 3 Paul Coll in NZ Open

Recently-crowned National squash champion Velavan Senthilkumar went down to world No 3 Paul Coll in the second round of the Lucino Vanities New Zealand Men’s Open 2023 in Tauranga on Thursday after beating world No 46 Shahjahan Khan 3-2 in his opening round.

Ranked 63 in the world, Senthilkumar put up a fight in the opening game of round two which the top-seeded Kiwi won 11-7 and quickly took control to win the next two games at 11-1 and 11-2.

Asian Games medallist and world No 70 Abhay Singh, who finished runner-up to Senthilkumar at the Nationals last month, also bowed out in the second round, to world No 14 Baptiste Masotti of France 8-11, 5-11, 1-11 after a spectacular 3-2 win over world No 54 Andrew Douglas in his opening match.

Meanwhile, world No 75 Akanksha Salunkhe lost to Malaysian world No 51 Aira Azman 3-0 in the opening round of the Barfoot & Thompson New Zealand Open for women.

GOLF

Divyanshu Bajaj and Abhinav Lohan joint clubhouse leaders at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club

Home golfer Divyanshu Bajaj and Gurugram’s Abhinav Lohan were the joint clubhouse leaders with eve-par 72 on the rain-hit opening day of the S.S.P. Chawrasia Invitational event at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC) here on Thursday.

As it rained for most part of the day forcing two stoppages that consumed 90 minutes, only 66 players out of 126 could complete the first round before play was suspended due to bad light.

The remaining 60 golfers will resume round one at 6:30 am on Friday. Round two will commence after the completion of the opening round.

Bajaj collected three birdies and an equal number of bogeys, while Lohan made three birdies, a bogey and a double-bogey.

Defending champion Manu Gandas carded a 75 and tournament host Chawrasia scored 78.

- Team Sportstar

SHOOTING

National shooting championship results

Vivek, champion Naveen and Ujjwal Malik, the men’s air pistol medallists in the National shooting championship in Bhopal on Thursday. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Naveen of Army won the men’s air pistol gold with a score of 246.2 in the 66th National shooting championship at the Madhya Pradesh Academy on Thursday.

The 22-year-old Naveen had qualified in the eighth place with a score of 581, after overtaking four others with the same score by virtue of better inner-10s, Naveen beat Vivek by 2.2 points for the gold.

It was a commendable fare from Naveen as there were 1213 shooters competing in men’s air pistol. Ujjwal Malik rose to the bronze medal after qualifying in the fifth place with 583.

Qualification topper NIshant Rawat who shot a national record equalling 589 finished eighth, behind Arjun Singh Cheema, Varun Tomar, Harsh Gupta and Sagar Dangi.

The junior, youth and sub-youth events also had high number of entries. Samrat Rana won the junior gold, while Girish Gupta accounted For the youth gold and the sub-youth silver.

The results:

10m air pistol: Men: 1. Naveen 246.2 (581); 2. Vivek 244.0 (586); 3. Ujjwal Malik 221.3 (583).

Juniors: 1. Samrat Rana 242.6 (579); 2. Vivek 236.8 (586); 3. Shiva Narwal 220.9 (579).

Youth: 1. Girish Gupta 240.2 (578); 2. Samrat Rana 239.4 (579); 3. Sahil 218.8 (580).

Sub-youth: 1. Parth Agrawal 581; 2. Girish Gupta 578 (21x); 3. Anshul 578 (16x).

- Kamesh Srinivasan

TENNIS

ITF junior tennis tournament results

Arnav Paparkar was impressive in his 6-1, 6-1 victory over fourth seed Kazuma Kimura of Japan in the boys quarterfinals of the Gadre Marine ITF junior tennis tournament at the Deccan Gymkhana Club on Thursday.

In the semifinals, Arnav will play second seed Kriish Tyagi. The other semifinal will be between Hiromasa Koyama of Japan and Moise Kouame of France.

In the girls section, Maaya Rajeshwaran set up a semifinal against Ariana Gogulina of Kazakhstan. Laxmisiri Dandu will play second seed Mandegar Farzami of Iran in the second semifinal.

The results (quarterfinals):

Boys: Hiromasa Koyama (Jpn) bt Kandhavel Mahalingam 6-1, 7-5; Moise Kouame (Fra) bt Aarjun pandit 6-4, 6-4; Arnav Paparkar bt Kazuma Kimura (Jpn) 6-1, 6-1; Kriish Tyagi bt Bushan Haobam 6-2, 2-6, 6-2.

Girls: Maaya Rajeshwaran bt Yasmin Vavrova (Svk) 6-2, 6-4; Ariana Gogulina (Kaz) bt Harshini Nagaraj 3-6, 6-0, 6-0; Laxmisiri Dandu bt Diya Ramesh 6-4, 6-4; Mandegar Farzami (Iri) bt Amodini Naik 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.

- Kamesh Srinivasan

AITA women’s tennis tournament results

Priyanshi Bhandari outplayed third seed Yubrani Banerjee 6-0, 6-2 in the semifinals of the Rs.2,50,000 AITA women’s tennis tournament at the Ace Academy, Padolia, on Thursday.

In the final, Priyanshi will play her doubles partner, Pooja Ingale who fought her way past Vidula Amar in three sets.

In the doubles final, Priyanshi and Pooja will meet the Vemuri twins, Abhaya and Apurva.

The results (semifinals):

Singles: Priyanshi Bhandari bt Yubrani Banerjee 6-0, 6-2; Pooja Ingale bt Vidula Amar 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Doubles: Priyanshi Bhandari & Pooja Ingale bt Yubrani Banerjee & Sonal Patil 6-2, 7-6(2); Abhaya Vemuri & Apurva Vemuri bt Divya Bhardwaj & Sejal Bhutada 7-6(5), 6-3.

- Kamesh Srinivasan

BASKETBALL

73rd National basketball championship results

Delhi scored a thrilling 65-63 victory over Maharashtra in women’s group-B in the 73rd National basketball championship at the Guru Nanak Dev Indoor Stadium on Thursday.

Delhi qualified for the quarterfinals along with Railways, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Punjab.

In the men’s section, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Services, Railways and Rajasthan made the quarterfinals.

The results (league):

Men: Group-A: Rajasthan 94 (Devender Choudary 24, Mahaveer 20, Ashish Tiwari 20, Lokendra Singh 16) bt Telangana 71 (Bill Nathan Abraham 27, Surya Kumar 13)

Group-B: Delhi 86 (Vishesh Bhriguvanshi 32, Rachit 19, Arjun Singh 13, Joginder Singh 13) bt Railways 79 (Manik 27, Palpreet Singh 20, Jaya Venkatesh10).

Tamil Nadu 93 (Bal Dhaneswar 15, Prashant Singh Rawat 16, B Soorya 12, Aravind Kumar 11) bt Kerala 64 (Jerome Prince 17).

Women: Group-A: Chhattisgarh 82 (Nisha Kashyap 20, Shanthi Xaxa 19, Divyani Gangwal 10) bt West Bengal 55 (Jyoti 25, Megha Singh 10).

Karnataka 74 (Sanjana Ramesh 23, Varsha Nandini 16, Lopamudra 16, Roshni John 10) bt Tamil Nadu 55 (Nitika 15, Srividya 11).

Group-B: Delhi 65 (Raspreet Sidhu 21, Ishika Choudhary 10) bt Maharashtra 63 (Siya Seodhar 16, Anshika Kanojia 11).

Punjab 61 (Manmeet Kaur 17, Kavya Singla 15, Komalpreet Kaur 12) bt Uttar Pradesh 56 (Lipramayee Satapathy 16, Megh Singh 15, Shruti Yadav 10)

- Kamesh Srinivasan

BADMINTON

Inter-ministry badminton championship results

Himanshu Saroha and Tushar Sharma of Delhi Audit made the doubles final of the Inter-ministry badminton championship at the AIIMS Gymkhana here on Thursday.

In the final, the Audit duo will play Abhinav Prakash and Gaurav Deswal of Ministry of Communication.

The results:

Men’s doubles (semifinals): Himanshu Saroha & Tushar Sharma bt Rajendar Kumar & Kulwinder 21-7, 21-8; Abhinav Prakash & Gaurav Deswal bt Arvind Rawat & KP Biju Kumar 21-10, 21-13.

- Kamesh Srinivasan

CRICKET

Muthoot Microfin downs Tripunithura CC ‘A’ in the all-India Pooja cricket tournament

Muthoot Microfin defeated host Tripunithura CC ‘A’ by two wickets in the 73rd Navio all-India Pooja cricket tournament at the Tripunithura Palace Oval on Thursday.

The scores: Tripunithura CC ‘A’ 211 in 43.3 overs (S.N. Ameershah 81, K.N. Harikrishnan 34) lost to Muthoot Microfin 213/8 in 44.1 overs (P.S. Jerin 51, M. Nikhil 36, P.G. Gireesh 36, Harikrishnan 3/43).

Golden Threads, Ernakulam, defeated Udayogamandal’s FSA 3-0 and entered the quarterfinal of the 40 ^th C.H. Mohammed Koya memorial football tournament at the Fort Kochi Parade ground on Thursday.

The result (pre-quarterfinal): Golden Threads, Ekm 3 *Adarsh 8, Renjith 48, Sivaprasad 60) bt FSA, Udyogamandal 0.

- Stan Ryan