TENNIS
Bopanna-Middelkoop pair reaches Hamburg Open final
Rohan Bopanna and his Dutch partner Matwe Middelkoop came from a set down to beat top seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos in the semifinal of the ATP500 event in Hamburg, Germany on Friday.
The Spanish-Argentine duo of Granollers and Zeballos took the opening set 6-3. However, the fourth-seeded Indo-Dutch pair, who reached the French Open semifinal this year, won the second set with the same scoreline to level things up before clinching the match tiebreak 10-3.
Bopanna and Middelkoop will face either third seeds Tim Puetz and Michael Venus or the unseeded pair of Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara in the final.
This will be Bopanna’s fourth tour-level final this year. While the 42-year-old Indian, world number 21 in doubles, won the ATP250 titles in Adelaide and Pune with compatriot Ramkumar Ramanathan, he and Canada’s Denis Shapovalov lost the summit clash in Doha.
- Team Sportstar
AITA National series juniors
Top seed Aryan Arora beat Tanishq Jadhav 9-6 to make the boys semifinals of the AITA National series under-18 tennis tournament at the Joygaon Academy.
Skandha Prasanna Rao, Jason David and Kavin Karthik were the others to make the semifinals of the boys event. In the girls section, Samaira Malik, Riya Sachdeva and Asmi Adkar had made the semifinals.
Monsoon rain has played havoc with the schedule, leaving a big question mark on the completion of the event on the clay courts, as was the case last week in a similar tournament at the same venue.
The results
- Kamesh Srinivasan
BADMINTON
Kashyap, Tanisha lose in Taipei Open, India’s campaign over
Indian campaign ended at the Taipei Open badminton tournament after Parupalli Kashyap and Tanisha Crasto suffered narrow defeats in the quarterfinals of the singles and doubles competitions respectively, here on Friday.
Third seed Kashyap’s impressive run ended with a 12-21 21-12 17-21 loss to Soong Joo Ven of Malaysia in a 55-minute match of the Super 300 tournament.
Tanisha also had a disappointing day as she suffered defeats in both the mixed and women’s doubles competition.
Tanisha and Ishaan Bhatnagar, seeded sixth, lost 19-21 12-21 to Malaysia’s Hoo Pang Ron and Toh Ee Wei in the mixed doubles match that lasted 32 minutes.
The 19-year-old Dubai-born Tanisha then produced a gallant fight with her women’s doubles partner Shruti Mishra but couldn’t go past Hong Kong’s sixth seeds Ng Tsz Yau and Tsang Hiu Yan, losing 16-21 22-20 18-21 in just over an hour.
-PTI
GOLF
Seher Atwal wins 10th leg of Hero WPGT with final hole birdie
Seher Atwal kept her nerves and fired a birdie on the final hole to win her first title of the season in the 10th leg of the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour here on Friday.
Seher was runner-up in her last two starts.
A dramatic battle unfolded on the final day at the Prestige Golfshire with no less than four contenders for the title.
Seher (72) lost her overnight lead early on the front nine and Sneha Singh led at the turn with a two-under 34 front nine.
Then Nayanika Sanga (70) made a charge to set the clubhouse target. For Neha Tripathi, the putts would not fall. She ended with a par on 18th and an even par 72, though a birdie on the last hole would have forced a play-off with Seher, whose last 10 holes with three birdies and no bogeys clinched the issue.
Nayanika Sanga, a Gurgaon golfer who turned 18 last month, turned in a fine performance finishing with 2-under 70. She ended one short of Seher and was in a tie for second with Neha Tripathi (72).
Seher started the final day one shot ahead of Neha, but dropped three shots on the first, third and sixth while Neha had just one bogey on fifth. At that point Neha was one shot ahead of Seher. Neha birdied the eighth.
The battle became intense as Seher birdied the ninth and Neha bogeyed it for a two-shot swing that brought them level, but both were two shots behind the third player in the final group, Sneha. She played a superb front nine of 2-under 34 with four birdies and two bogeys.
Seher birdied the 11th to go ahead, Neha pulled level with a birdie on 12th and the duo was level till they came to the 18th. Seher pulled off a birdie, while Neha missed out.
Sneha’s chance ended with a bogey on 17th, and she parred 18th for a card of 72 with five birdies and five bogeys. She finished 2-under 214 in fourth place.
Neha, who held a share of the first-round lead, paid the price of two bogeys on the front nine, though she did have a birdie too.
On the back nine Neha had just one birdie and ended with a par on 18th where she needed a birdie to get into a play-off with Seher.
-PTI
Atwal, Theegala start with 73 each in 3M Open
It was not the best of starts for India’s Arjun Atwal or Indian-American Sahith Theegala as they shot 2-over 73 each to be at Tied-73rd after the first round at the 3M Open on PGA Tour in Blaine.
Atwal had one birdie and three bogeys, while Theegala, who was down at 4-over, finished birdie-birdie to give himself a chance of getting into the weekend.
Indo-Swede Daniel Chopra had a rough times with 7-over 78.
While Atwal and Theegala have to ensure they get a decent second round, Chopra will need a stunning one to stay on for the money rounds.
Scott Piercy and Sungjae Im are tied for the lead at 6-under. Tony Finau was two back after three close birdie misses over his last four holes.
Finau was tied third alongside Brice Garnett, Emiliano Grillo, Tony Doug Ghim and Tom Hoge at 4-under. A big bunch of nine players, including Adam Hadwin and David Lingmerth, were tied for 8th at 3-under.
Atwal hit 12 of 18 greens while finishing at 2 over. He bogeyed the par-3 13th, but got back the shot on the 451-yard par-4 15th hole with a 22-foot putt for birdie.
After a tee shot on to the green at the 202-yard par-3 17th, Atwal suffered from a tough three-putt. Then, he had another bogey on the par-4 ninth.
Theegala did not find half the fairways and had only nine of the 18 greens in regulation. Yet, his putting with a great accuracy from inside 10 feet saved him a lot of shots.
The 43-year-old Piercy, who has four career wins, changed his caddie, his swing coach, his driver and his putter last week.
The 24-year-old Sungjae Im, 19th in the FedEx Cup standings and 24th in the world, birdied four of his last six holes. He was tied for eighth at the Masters this year.
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