Tigers stay right at top

Hyderabad, June 11: Boulder Hills Tigers and Novotel Stars registered comprehensive 3-0 wins in the fifth round to throw open the race for the semifinal spots of the ATUM

T9 Golf Challenge being played at the Boulder Hills Golf & Country Club.

Saturday’s penultimate round matches saw pretournament favourites Tigers justify their billing by topping the group with

13.5 points by recording their sixth consecutive victory, against T Eagles.

Anil Yamani went back to winning ways as he and KBN Raju won the singles games 2 holes up with one to play. In what was building up to an upset in the doubles game, Sridhar Reddy & former India spinner Venkatapathi Raju drained two brilliant birdies on the final two holes to turn around a 1 hole deficit into a 1 hole up win.

In the second match, Novotel Stars gave their semifinal chances a huge boost by blanking bottom placed Boulder Ninjas. Led by their captain C. V. Ramana Reddy who won his game 2 holes up with 1 to play, the Stars gave a professional performance with Narsimha Raju winning by the same scoreline and the fresh pair of KVSN Reddy & team owner Madhusudhana Rao closing their game 3 holes up with 1 to play. That took them to the

fourth place on the leaderboard with one match to play.

The third match saw BHGCC Raiders come home 2-1 winners against the spirited ATUM Chargers. Carlos Saporiti was exceptional as he recorded a perfect 5 holes up with 4 to play win and provide his team some early momentum. He finished the match on the

14th hole with a delightful chip in front of the cheering gallery. On the other hand, Vijay Kumar of the Chargers won 4 holes up with 2 to play to even out the match before the pair of Fintan O’Dwyer & Vasanth Raju closed out a

2 holes up with 1 to play win.

The final round robin fixtures will be played on Wednesday with 4 teams vying for 3 spots. Interestingly, the teams are to play each other and are within 1 point making it a cracker of a finish where one of them will miss out.

The Tigers are way ahead at the top of the leaderboard with 13.5 points, followed by Jaagruthi Jaguars and T Eagles with 9 points each. The Novotel Stars are fourth with 8.5 points, just ahead of BHGCC Raiders who have 8 points.

The Results: Boulder Hills Tigers 3-0 T Eagles; Novotel Stars 3-0 Boulder Ninjas; BHGCC Raiders 2-1 ATUM Chargers.

Former Test cricketer S. L. Venkatapathi Raju waves after winning his doubles match alongside partner Sridhar Reddy at ATUM T9 Golf Challenge on Saturday.