CHESS
Nikitenko joins Abhijeet in lead at Delhi GM Open with win over Paichadze
Grandmaster Mihail Nikitenko beat Grandmaster Luka Paichadze to join Abhijeet Gupta in the lead with seven points at the end of the eighth round in the Delhi GM Open chess tournament at the Tivoli Gardens, Chhattarpur, on Thursday.
In an even battle, Nikitenko hooked a knight on the 55th move and Paichadze promptly resigned.
Overnight sole leader Abhijeet drew with Manuel Petrosyan to reach 6.5 points, with two more rounds to go in the Swiss League competition.
In the ninth round, Nikitenko will play black against Abhijeet. There were 12 players with 6.5 points and 16 players with six points, which could lead to a very lively climax. On the second board, Mamikon Gharibyan will play top seed SL Narayanan. Diptayan Ghosh will play Van Huy Nguyen.
The results (eighth round):
Manuel Petrosyan 6.5 drew with Abhijeet Gupta 7; SL Narayanan 6.5 drew with Neelash Saha 6.5; Mihail NIkitenko 7 bt Luka Paichadze 6; Aronyak Ghosh 6.5 drew with Vitaly Sivuk 6.5; Diptayan Ghosh 6.5 bt Boris Savchenko 6; Aditya Samant 6.5 bt Saravana Krishnan 5.5; Mamikon Gharibyan 6.5 bt Abhishek Kelkar 5.5; Mikulas Manik 6 drew with Adarsh Sriram 6; Viresh Sharnarthi 6.5 bt Hari Madhavan 5.5; Amit Agrawal 5.5 lost to Aleksej Aleksandrov 6.5; EU Ahaz 5.5 lost to Van Huy Nguyen 6.5; Semetei Tegin 6 drew with Arnav Agrawal 6; S Nitin 6.5 bt Soham Roy 5.5; Alok Sinha 5 lost to Karthik Venkataraman 6; Deepan Chakkravarthy 6 bt Harshit Sahu 5; Alekhya Mukhopadhyay 5 lost to Harsh Suresh 6.
-Kamesh Srinivasan
TENNIS
Bopanna-Gille pair loses quarterfinals in Stuttgart
Rohan Bopanna in partnership with Saner Gille was beaten 7-5, 6-4 in the doubles quarterfinals by Taylor Fritz and Jiri Lehecka in the €751,630 ATP tennis tournament in Stuttgart, Germany, on Thursday.
The Indo-Belgian pair collected 45 ATP points and €6,930.
The results:
€751,630 ATP, Stuttgart, Germany
Doubles (quarterfinals): Taylor Fritz (USA) & Jiri Lehecka (Cze) bt Rohan Bopanna & Sander Gille (Bel) 7-5, 6-4.
€181,250 Challenger, Ilkley, Britain
Doubels (quarterfinals): Hady Habib (Lbn) & Trey Hilderbrand (USA) bt Mikhail Kukushkin (Kaz) & Divij Sharan 5-7, 6-4, [10-8]; Diego Hidalgo (Ecu) & Patrik Trhac (USA) bt Anirudh Chandrasekar & Ramkumar Ramanathan 7-5, 6-4; Pre-quarterfinals: Anirudh & Ramkumar bt Leandro Riedl (Sui) & Yosuke Watanuki (Jpn) 6-4, 6-4.
€145,250 Challenger, Lyon, France
Doubles (quarterfinals): Yu Hsiou Hsu (Tpe) & Kaichi Uchida (Jpn) bt Adil Kalyanpur & Parikshit Somani 6-2, 6-2; Pre-quarterfinals: Adil & Parikshit bt gEoff Blancaneaux & Jonathan Eysseric (Fra) 6-4, 7-5.
$30,000 ITF men, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Singles (first round): Aryan Shah bt William Hsieh (USA) 6-2, 6-1.
$15,000 ITF men, Nyiregyhaza, Hungary
Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Neil Oberleitner (Aut) bt Rethin Pranav 6-2, 6-2.
$15,000 ITF men, Messina, Italy
Doubles (quarterfinals): Rocco Piatti (Mon) & Lorenzo Sciahbasi (Ita) bt Chinmaya Dev Chauhan & Alberto Morolli (Ita) 6-1, 6-1.
$15,000 ITF men, Vaasa, Finland
Singles (first round): Matthew Summers (GBR) bt Aryan Lakshmanan 6-1, 6-3.
$15,000 ITF men, Luan, China
Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Siddharth Vishwakarma bt Yecong Mo (Chn) 6-3, 6-4; Takuya Kumasaka (Jpn) bt Sidharth Rawat 6-3, 6-2; S Mukund bt Yaojie Zeng (Chn) 6-3, 6-4.
Doubels (quarterfinals): Aoran Wang & Yukun Wang (Chn) bt Parth Aggarwal & Siddharth Vishwakarma 6-3, 6-3.
$40,000 ITF women, Guimaraes, Portugal
Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Ankita Raina & Alice Robbe (Fra) bt Warona Mdlulwa & Wozuko Mdlulwa (RSA) 6-0, 6-1.
$15,000 ITF women, Kayseri, Turkey
Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Jasmine Conway (GBR) bt Tanisha Kashyap 6-3, 6-4.
Doubles (quarterfinals): Jasmine Conway (GBR) & Aysegul Mert (Tur) bt Tanisha Kashyap & Jamilah Snells (USA) 6-4, 2-6, [12-10].
$15,000 ITF women, Monastir, Tunisia
Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Zeel Desai bt Meriem Ezzedine (Tun) 6-1, 6-1.
$15,000 ITF women, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Akanksha Nitture bt Sandugash Kenzhibayeva (Kaz) 6-4, 6-2.
Doubles (quarterfinals): Punnin Kovapitukted (Tha) & Ksenia Laskutova bt Pooja Ingale & Jeong Moon (Kor) 6-2, 6-3; Akanksha Nitture & Soha Sadiq w.o. Varvara Panshina & Daria Shubina (Uzb).
-Kamesh Srinivasan
GOLF
Mannat Brar enters second round of matchplay at R&A Women’s Amateur
India’s Mannat Brar fired fine rounds of 73 and 71 to lie Tied-16th in the strokeplay segment of the prestigious 122nd Women’s Amateur Championship.
With the top 64 of the 144 starters moving into the matchplay segment, Mannat also made the grade.
Mannat, the All India amateur champion, is ranked 389th in the world and recently teed up at pro events on the Ladies European Tour’s Access series and also made the cut in one of them.
Last year, she finished T-11 in the Hero Women’s Indian Open, a Ladies European Tour event. She was the top Indian finisher despite being an amateur.
Mannat clashed with Uma Bergner of Germany and she trounced her 5&4 with four holes to spare to enter the last 16. She will meet Rebekah Gardner of Ireland in the next round. Rebekah had shot a similar even par two round total in the strokeplay segment.
In the strokeplay, Mannat had five birdies, four bogeys and one double bogey in the first round, while on the second day she had five birdies and four bogeys.
Jasmine Koo (68-70) conjured a grandstand finish at Nairn to top the stroke play qualifying in The 122nd Women’s Amateur Championship.
– PTI
Diksha makes modest start with even par round at Hulencourt
Diksha Dagar, one of the seven Indians on show at the Hulencourt Women’s Open, began with a modest even par 72 in the first round of the event.
Diksha, who has been in fine form this season and has been in the top-10 of the Ladies European Tour’s Order of Merit, had three birdies and three bogeys.
She started on the back nine and bogeyed the 14th, but turned in one-under with birdies on the 16th and the 18th.
A bogey on the second followed by a birdie on the third meant she was still under par. A bogey on the seventh, which was her 16th hole, saw her finish at even par.
– PTI
