PARA SHOOTING WORLD CUP
Paralympic medallist Singhraj Adhana won two gold on the final day as India produced their best-ever performance at the Para Shooting World Cup, finishing with 10 medals.
Singhraj's twin medals propelled India to the top of the medal table, their best performance since taking part in the competition for the first time in 2017. In total, India won six golds, three silvers and one bronze.
France (11) and Ukraine (15), took the second and third place, having won 4 and 3 gold respectively.
On the final day of the event, Tokyo Paralympic silver medallist Singhraj, who initially qualified in the fourth place, rode on his steady rounds of shooting to score 224.1 points and eventually clinched the gold.
Ukraine's Oleksiy Denisiuk, settled for silver with 216.2 points, while Korea's Jeongdu Jo won bronze after scoring 193.9.
Before the individual event, Singhraj teamed up with compatriots Deepender Singh and Manish Narwal to take the team gold.
The individual gold was also Singhraj's first ever in the P4 event after several silver and bronze medals.
"I am very happy to finally win a gold in this event. I wanted to win it in Chateauroux 2022 in France but had some technical glitches. I am happy that I could execute my plans in Munich," Singhraj said in a release.
"I would like to thank my coaches for the success." Earlier, India started off its Para Shooting World Cup campaign on a brilliant note with Rahul Jakhar clinching gold in P3-Mixed 25m Pistol SH1 event.
Jakhar also combined with Singhraj and Nihal to take the team gold with a total of 1695-36x ahead of Korea and the Czech Republic.
Shooters Manish Narwal and Rubina Francis followed it up with another gold in P6 - Mixed Team 10m Air SH1 Pistol event.
The Indian Para Shooting team will next be in action at the World Championships in November slated to be held in Al Ain, UAE.
- PTI
ATHLETICS
World Athletics Championships: Last round carries Annu Rani to final
Asian silver-medallist Annu Rani produced her best in her last throw in the qualification round and entered the women’s javelin throw final at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon, USA, on Wednesday. It will be Olympian Rani’s second final in her third consecutive Worlds.
National record holder Rani, who was eighth at the last Worlds in Doha in 2019 and who has a personal best of 63.82m which came in Jamshedpur in May, fouled her first attempt and had a mediocre 55.35m in her next before producing a decent 59.60m in her last effort. Though it was far behind the automatic qualification mark of 62.50, which only three achieved, it was enough to see her finish eighth overall (fifth in her group ‘B’) and enter the final which is open to the top 12. The final will be held on Friday evening (Saturday morning in India).
Japan’s Haruka Kitaguchi, a finalist at last year’s Tokyo Olympics, topped the qualification with a season-best 64.32m while China’s Olympic champion and Asian Games gold medallist Shiying Liu was second with 63.86.
Australia’s Kelsey-Lee Barber, the defending World champion and Olympic bronze medallist, was among those who progressed to the final but American Maggie Malone, this year’s World leader with 65.73m, could only manage 54.19m and failed to make the cut. In fact, none of the three who had crossed 65m this year will figure in the final. Tatsiana Khaladovich, the No. 2 in this year’s World list (65.70), missed the championships as her country Belarus was banned by World Athletics after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while Greece’s Elina Tzengko, the 2022 No. 3 with 65.40, was 20th in the qualifiers with 57.12 and failed to progress further.
Parul Chaudhary, the other Indian in action on Wednesday, was 17th in her heat (15:54.03s) and 31st overall in the women’s 5000m and failed to enter the final. Parul had won the bronze at the last Asian Championships (Doha, 2019) with a personal best 15:36.03. It was her second event at these Worlds, she had clocked a personal best in the 3000m steeple chase heat earlier but failed to make the final.
Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra and Rohit Yadav in javelin throw and the three Indian triple jumpers Praveen Chithravel, Eldhose Paul and Abdulla Aboobacker will open their Worlds campaign tonight (Friday morning in India).
-TEAM SPORTSTAR
National Open athletics shifted from Jamshedpur to Bengaluru
The Athletics Federation of India has shifted the 61st National Open Athletics Championships, which were scheduled to be held in Jamshedpur from October 15 to 19, to Bengaluru.
With organisers in Jamshedpur expressing their inability to host the event, the AFI was forced to change the venue. The Karnataka Athletics Association will now conduct the National Open on the same dates at the Kanteerva Stadium in Bengaluru, says an AFI circular to its State associations.
-TEAM SPORTSTAR
TENNIS
Indian team for Davis Cup
Ramkumar Ramanathan will spearhead the Indian challenge in the Davis Cup World Group-1 tie to be played on indoor hard courts in Lillehammer, Norway, on September 16 and 17.
The team was announced by the All India Tennis Association (AITA), on expected lines, on Thursday, following a virtual meeting of the selection committee with Nandan Bal as the Chairman.
Prajnesh Gunneswaran, Rohan Bopanna, Yuki Bhambri, Sasikumar Mukund and Sumit Nagal will be the other members of Rohit Rajpal as captain and Zeeshan Ali as the coach.
Divij Sharan who featured in the World Group play-off tie against Denmark at the Gymkhana Club gives way, as Ramkumar has been playing top class doubles and is ranked second best at 64 behind Bopanna (21).
The Norway team is expected to feature world No.6 and the French Open finalist Casper Ruud. Viktor Durasovic (320) and Luukas Hellum Lilleengen (1189) have been the other members of the team in the earlier ties.
With the postponement of the Asian Games by a year, the concern of AITA had easily been resolved, and the Indian team can assemble in strength after the US Open.
-Kamesh Srinivasan
Bopanna reaches semifinals
Rohan Bopanna, seeded fourth with Matwe Middelkoop, cruised past Nikola Cacic and Dusan Lajovic 6-4, 6-2, in the doubles quarterfinals of the € 1,911,620 ATP tennis tournament in Hamburg on Thursday.
In the $15,000 ITF men’s event in Colombo, six of the eight quarterfinal spots were grabbed by Indian players, Rishi Reddy, Digvijay Pratap Singh, Karan Singh, Nitin Kumar Sinha, Manish Sureshkumar and Fardeen Quamar, leaving the other two slots for the top two seeds.
The top two players were not spared in doubles, as the Indian pairs swept all the four semifinal spots.
The results:
€ 1,911,620 ATP, Hamburg, Germany Doubles (quarterfinals): Matwe Middelkoop (Ned) & Rohan Bopanna bt Nikola Cacic & Dusan Lajovic (Srb) 6-4, 6-2.
$53,120 Challenger, Indianapolis, US Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Purav Raja & Divij Sharan bt Rinky Hijikata (Aus) & Nicholas Monroe (US) 6-2, 7-5; John-Patrick Smith (Aus) & Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Hady Habib (Lib) & Li Tu (Aus) 6-3, 6-7(6), [10-7].
€ 45,730 Challenger, Pozoblanco, Spain Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Piotr Matuszewski (Pol) & Arjun Kadhe btAdrian Menendez-Maceiras (Esp) & Andrey Kuznetsov 6-4, 6-1.
€ 45,730 Challenger, Tampere, Finland Doubles (quarterfinals): Sriram Balaji & Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Kyrian Jacquet & Clement Tabur (Fra) 6-7(4), 6-1, [10-2]; Pre-quarterfinals: Anirudh Chandrasekar & Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Eero Vasa & Iiro Vasa (Fin) 4-6, 7-6(4), [10-8].
$60,000 ITF women, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan Doubles (quarterfinals): Mariia Tkachevva & Anastasia Zolotareva bt Shavit Kimchi (Isr) & Ankita Raina 6-4, 6-2.
$15,000 ITF women, Monastir, Tunisia Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Vaidehi Chaudhari bt Zdena Safarova (Cze) 6-3, 6-3; Jennifer Luikham bt Camilla Gennaro (Ita) 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(7).
Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Diana Maria Mihail (Rou) & Vaidehi Chaudhari bt Veda Varshita Ranabothu & Priyanka Rodricks 6-4, 6-1.
$15,000 ITF men, Seremban, Malaysia Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Vishnu Vardhan bt Thantub Suksumrarn (Tha) 6-3, 6-7(2), 7-6(1); Kento Takeuchi (Jpn) bt Madhwin Kamath 7-6(11), 6-1.
Doubles (quarterfinals): Tomohiro Masabayashi & Daisuke Sumizawa (Jpn) bt Patrick Toman (US) & Vishnu Vardhan 6-2, 6-2; Uisung Park & Ji Hoon Son (Kor) bt Darrshan Suresh (Mas) & Madhwin Kamath 6-2, 6-0.
$15,000 ITF men, Monastir, Tunisia Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Niki Poonacha bt Moerani Bouzige (Aus) 6-7(4), 6-2, 6-4.
Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli & Niki Poonacha bt Maxence Beauge (Fra) & Mu Tao (Chn) 6-3, 7-5.
$15,000 ITF men, Colombo, Sri Lanka Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Quentin Folliiot (Fra) bt Lohithaksha Bathrinath 6-3, 6-4; Rishi Reddy bt SD Prajwal Dev 3-6, 6-2, 5-2 (retired); Digvijay Pratap Ssingh bt Mao Takada (Jpn) 6-1, 6-2; Karan Singh bt Simone Agostini (Ita) 6-2, 6-4; Nitin Kumar Sinha bt Shohei Chikami (Jpn) 6-3 (retired); Manish Sureshkumar bt Tommy Czaplinski (US) 6-1, 6-2; Farden quamar bt Taketo Takamisawa (Jpn) 6-3, 2-6, 6-4; Eric Vanshelboim (Ukr) bt Paras Dahiya 3-0 (retired).
Doubles (quarterfinals): Adil Kalyanpur & Digvijay Pratap Singh bt Quentin Folliot (Fra) & Eric Vanshelboim (Ukr) 6-4, 6-7(2), [10-5]; Parikshit Somani & Manish Sureshkumar bt Tommy Dzaplinski (US) & Palaphoom Kovapitukted (Tha) 6-3, 6-4; SD Prajwal Dev & Rishi Reddy bt Lohithaksha Bathrinath & Tushar Madan 6-4, 4-6, [10-6]; Jagmeet Singh & Karan Singh w.o. Preston Brown (US) & Shohei Chikami (Jpn).
-Kamesh Srinivasan
BADMINTON
The Karnataka High Court has stayed the Badminton Association of India’s (BAI) decision to disaffiliate Karnataka Badminton Association (KBA) citing the state association’s non-compliance in amending its Constitution and bringing it in line with BAI bylaws.
A single-judge bench of Justice S.G. Pandit issued a notice to the respondents – BAI, Union Sports Ministry, Government of Karnataka and Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports, Karnataka – giving them two weeks’ time to file their objections.
In response to BAI’s decision on July 13 to disaffiliate it, the KBA had filed a writ petition in the High Court claiming that the BAI had not given any notice and the move was a “violation of the principles of natural justice”.
A KBA official stated that the stay order would give the body some breathing space and that badminton activities would soon resume. “We will decide our next course of action, including amending the bylaws to bring it inline with National Sports Code, after meetings with all our members by the end of the month,” he said.
-Sudarshan N
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