India thump Pak to enter Final
Mumbai: Ace cueists Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta combined forces to power India into the final of the Asian Snooker team championship in Abu Dhabi after thrashing arch-foes Pakistan 3-0 on Wednesday. India will take on Iran in the final. Mehta, India’s lone professional snooker player, gave the country a grand start when he drubbed Mohammed Asif 73-16 in the opening game of the semifinal, according to information provided by the team’s coach Derek Sippy. Thereafter Advani, recently crowned the continent’s 6-Red champion, showed impressive touch to outclass Asjad Iqbal 83-25 to give India a 2-0 lead. Advani and Mehta then joined hands to trounce Asif and Asjad 92-8 to give India a commanding 3-0 victory. Meanwhile, Iran defeated Malaysia by a similar 3-0 margin in the other semifinal.
Heena misses Final by a point
Munich: Former world number one Heena Sidhu missed out on qualifying for the final of women’s 10-metre air pistol event by just one point on the concluding day of the ISSF World Cup here on Wednesday. At the Olympic Shooting Centre, Heena finished 12th out of 104 shooters in the eventual standings but would have been pleased at having shot a higher score than 384 ahead of the all-important Rio Olympics. The eighth finalist from Serbia, who eventually won the gold, made it through with a score of 385 and had less inner 10s than Heena. Shweta Singh and Shri Nivetha Paramanantham, the other Indians in the event shot 378 and 377 to finish 47th and 52nd respectively. In the other event of the day Chain Singh, in the men’s 50-metre rifle 3 positions, shot 1170 in qualification to finish at 38th spot.
Dipika, Joshna enter quarters
Hong Kong: India’s leading squash players Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal won their opening round matches to reach the quarterfinals of the PSA HKFC International here on Wednesday. Joshna, India’s highest ranked player at 13, beat Egyptian qualifier Salma Hany 11-8, 11-7, 6-11, 11-8 in a match lasting 37 minutes. later in the day, World No.19 Dipika dispatched Malaysian qualifier low Wee Wern 11-1, 11-3, 11-3 in 23 minutes to advance to the last eight. low, a former World No.5, has dropped to 33 in the rankings. Third seed Joshna faces seventh seed Rachael Grinham of Australia in the quarters while sixth seed Dipika awaits the winner of the match between top seed Joelle King and local hope Joey Chan.