GOLF
Amandeep top Indian at 14th, Diksha starts with 70 in Swiss Ladies Open
India’s Diksha Dagar played a steady round with just two birdies against one bogey as she opened the Swiss Ladies Open with a card of one-under 70 to lie lying T-27.
The top Indian of the day, however, was Amandeep Drall, who opened at the 10th with a birdie and closed the day with a birdie on ninth. In between, she hit two more birdies and two bogeys for a 2-under 69 that put her in T-14th place.
The third Indian in the field, Vani Kapoor carded one-over 72 and was T-53.
There are 126 players in the 54-hole stroke play event, where the cut will be applied after two rounds with top 60 professionals and ties moving into the final day.
France’s Anne-Charlotte Mora fired a nine-under 62 to take a two-shot lead at the Swiss Ladies Open at Golfpark Holzhäusern. It was a day of low scoring in Switzerland, as Mora went bogey-free in the afternoon and posted nine birdies to storm to the top of the leaderboard.
Her compatriot Nastasia Nadaud set the clubhouse lead earlier with a round of seven-under par. But Mora overtook her later.
Diksha, getting ready for home Open, the Hero Women’s Indian Open, where Amandeep Drall was the runner-up in 2022, started from the back nine like the other two Indians. While Diksha dropped just one bogey, she missed a lot of birdie chances and made two through the day.
Diksha is currently lying third on Race to Costa Del Sol, the Order of Merit for the Ladies European Tour.
Amandeep and Vani have had mixed seasons as they get ready for their home open and also go on to save their playing rights for 2024.
In a tie for second on seven-under par sit Nadaud and Norway’s Madelene Stavnar. Both went bogey-free like the outright leader.
Three players sit in a tie for fourth on five-under par, a trio which includes Wales’ Chloe Williams, Germany’s Alexandra Försterling, and Sweden’s Moa Folke.
-PTI
Atwal misses cut in first event of new season on PGA TOUR
Indian golfer Arjun Atwal found the going tough, carding a 74 following a first-round 77 to miss the cut at the season-opening Fortinet Championship on the PGA tour.
Indian-American Sahith Theegala, who finished 31st in the FedEx Cup standings last season and missed the Tour Championships by a whisker, has opened the new season in a spectacular manner.
With a stunning 64 following up on his first round 68, Theegala looking for his maiden success on the PGA TOUR, is now the joint leader with Korea’s KH Kim (65-67) at 12-under.
Kim, who will turn 25 on Sunday and hopes to get the win to make it a perfect birthday at Silverado Resort’s North Course.
Another Asian, Sangmoon Bae of Korea, a two-time PGA TOUR winner, was third with 67-66 -- one shot behind the leading duo in the first of seven re-imagined PGA TOUR Fall events.
Justin Thomas shot 5-under 67 after first round 69 and it left him four strokes off the pace.
-PTI
Shubhankar hangs in trying to make cut at BMW PGA Championships
Indian golfer Shubhankar Sharma was hanging at Tied-61 with one more hole left in the second round of the BMW PGA Championship when play was suspended overnight due to darkness.
Sharma, who needed a strong second round after his first round of 1-over 73, was 3-under through 17 holes to get to a total of 2-under and was right on the cut line when play ended early on Friday.
He will return to complete the second round on Saturday.
Sharma, who was Tied-8th at the Open and then T-7 at the Irish Open, is 49th on the Race to Dubai standings and needs to be inside the Top-50 to qualify for the DP World Tour Championships. He finished 29th on the Tour last season.
Meanwhile, the much-talked Ryder Cup captain’s pick Ludvig Aberg and Sebastian Soderberg shared a one-shot lead after day two. The Swedish duo produced a pair of big finishes in the twilight at Wentworth Club.
Early starters Thomas Detry, Masahiro Kawamura and Adrian Meronk set the target at 9-under in the fourth Rolex Series event of the season and it looked like they would lead the way into the weekend but the Swedish duo had other ideas.
Soderberg made a hat-trick of gains from the 10th but the 32-year-old was still two shots off the lead before he birdied the 17th and eagled the last to card a 64 and get to 10-under.
In fading light, Aberg birdied his last three holes to sign for a 66 and join his countryman at the summit.
Home hero Tommy Fleetwood then completed a birdie-birdie finish to card a 66 of his own and joined the group a shot off the lead.
Austria’s Sepp Straka and Aaron Rai are in the clubhouse at 8-under alongside Dane Marcus Helligkilde, who had four holes left to play and will be one of 24 players returning to complete their rounds on Saturday after an earlier fog delay.
Aberg claimed his maiden DP World Tour victory in Switzerland two weeks ago, and his place in the European Ryder Cup Team for the upcoming contest in Rome is another step in a remarkable rise for the former college superstar and Amateur World Number One who only turned professional in June.
-PTI
SHOOTING
Elavenil Valarivan and Sandeep Singh shot 629.1 and missed the chance to fight for a medal by 0.5 points in mixed air rifle in the shooting World Cup in Rio, Brazil.
The Indian pair finished fifth among 42 teams.
The results:
- Team Sportstar
TENNIS
Top seed Prisha Shinde overcame stiff resistance from Ruma Gaikaiwari 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to win the girls title in the ITF junior tennis tournament at the Ahmedabad City Foundation courts on Saturday.
A trainee of Ravindra Pandey at the Solaris Club in Pune, Prisha, however, was beaten in the doubles final in partnership with Aarushi Raval, as Rum and Sailly Thakkar clinched the title 10-3 in the super tie-break.
Second seed Samarth Sahita, a trainee of coach Shrimal Bhatt, outplayed Aniketh Venkataraman for the loss of four games to emerge the boys champion.
The results (final):
- Team Sportstar
Niki Poonacha in doubles final
Niki Poonacha in partnership with Antoine Escoffier beat the top seeds Sadio Doiumbia and Fabien Reboul 7-5, 2-6, [10-7] in the doubles semifinals of the €118,000 Challenger tennis tournament in Rennes, France, on Saturday.
In the final, the Indo-French pair will play the second seeds Sander Arends and David Pel of the Netherlands on Sunday.
In the doubles final of the $25,000 ITF men’s event in Kigali, Rwanda, SD Prajwal Dev and Ishaque Eqbal missed three match points in the second set tie-break and got beaten 6-7(5), 7-6(7), [10-7] by Nicholas Bybel and Eric Vanshelboim.
In the $15,000 ITF women’s event in Monastir, Tunisia, Vaishnavi Adkar made the final, and will challenge third seed Aruzhan Sagandikova of Kazakhstan.
The results:
- Kamesh Srinivasan
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