Mixed day for shuttlers
Calgary (Canada): Four Indian singles shuttlers, including B Sai Praneeth, and rising men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy reached the pre-quarterfinals of the Canada Open Grand Prix badminton tournament. The 22-year-old Sai Praneeth, seeded 10th, streamrolled Czech Republic’s Jan Frohlich 21-14, 21-16 to set up a match against Niluka Karunaratne of Sri lanka at the Markin MacPhail Centre here at the $50,000 event. Ninth seed Ajay Jayaram and 11th seed Anand Pawar also reached the pre-quarterfinals after notching up comfortable straight-game victories in the men’s singles competition. While Jayaram beat China’s Huang Yuxiang 21-15, 21-16 and will next take on Indonesia’s Wisnu Yuli Prasetyo, Pawar prevailed over another Chinese Zhu Siyuan 21-17, 21-16 to train his guns against second seed Xue Song of China. In women’s singles, Tanvi lad thrashed USA’s Jamie Subandhi 21-11, 21-14 and will next meet home favourite and third seed Michelle li. Fast rising duo of Manu and Sumeeth, who finished runners-up at the US Open Grand Prix Gold last week, beat local pair of Adrian liu and Derrick Ng 21-12, 15-21, 21-12 in a 43-minute battle. The fourth seeded Indians will next play against Chinese Taiei’s Jhe-Huei lee and Yang lee. However, there was heartbreak in store for P C Thulasi in women’s singles competition and men’s doubles combo of K Dilshad and Kona Tarun.
no indian At Sw19 in singles
london: For the second consecutive Grand Slam this year, there will be no Indian featuring in the singles event as Saketh Myneni bowed out of the Wimbledon qualifiers following compatriots Yuki Bhambri and Somdev Devvarman. Myneni lost his second round 6-7 (5), 6-3, 7-9 to Frenchman Kenny De Schepper, who is ranked 163, 47 places above the Indian. Earlier, Yuki had lost his first round 6-7(5), 6-2, 2-6 to lower-ranked Italy’s Matteo Donati. Yuki is ranked 156 while Donati is 225. Somdev, who has been struggling since winning the Delhi Open Challenger in February, lost his opening round 7-5, 4-6, 2-6 to Spain’s Nigo Cervantes. In the doubles, India will have a strong representation as leander Paes, Rohan Bopnna and women world number one Sania Mirza will be top contenders.
athletes win 10 medals
Pathum Thani (Thailand): Reigning Asian champion shot putter Inderjeet Singh and 800m specialist Jinson Johnson bagged a gold each to contribute to India’s 10-medal haul in the second leg of the Asian Grand Prix Athletics Series, here on Thursday. Asian Games 400m men’s Bronze medallist Arokya Rajiv notched up his personal best of 45.81sec to take India’s Gold tally to three. Overall, the Indians finished with three Gold, two Silver and five Bronze medals to better their tally from eight in the first leg held at Bangkok. long Jumper Ankit Sharma clinched his second Silver medal in the Asian GP Series with an effort of 7.80m. M Gomathi bagged the Silver medal in the women’s 800m, clocking 2:06:25. In the women’s 100m hurdles, Gayathri Govindraj won the Bronze medal with a timing of 13.66s. Srabani Nanda also bagged her second bronze in the ongoing Asian GP Series, this time clocking 11.72 in the women’s 100m sprint. MR Poovamma won the Bronze medal in the women’s 400m race, clocking 52.72sec. India added two more Bronze medals to their kitty in the men’s and women’s 4x100m relays. The men’s team finished with 39.60s while the women’s 4x100m relay clocked 45.33s.
modest start by jeev
Munich: Jeev Milkha Singh overcame a double bogey start to finish at one-under 71 and was placed at tied 52nd, though some players were still on the course at the BMW International Open at Golfclub Munchen Eichenried. Among those on the course was his teammate Shiv Kapur one over par after 16 holes. leading the field was Dane lasse Jensen, who had a flawless seven-under 65 and one shot behind was England’s Andrew Johnston who birdied the last three holes of his opening round. Also at six-under was Rafa Cabrera-Bello.
nicola wins european gold
Baku (Azerbaijan): Britain’s Nicola Adams added a European Games gold to her Olympic boxing title Thursday as she won the women’s flyweight final in Azerbaijan. Almost three years after she became the first ever women’s Olympic boxing champion, Adams won by majority decision against Poland’s Sandra Drabik in the first boxing final at the inaugural European Games. Two of the judges scored the four-round fight 39-37 in favor of Adams, with the third ruling the bout a 38-38 draw.
Rome council in favour of bid
Rome: Rome’s city council voted 38-6 in favor of the capital’s bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics on Thursday — a strong showing amid a widening corruption scandal. Italian Olympic Committee president Giovanni Malago and bid leader luca Cordero di Montezemolo campaigned for the candidacy at City Hall earlier this week. Other bidders are Paris, Boston, Hamburg and Budapest also expected to join in. The IOC will select the host city in 2017.