Praneeth marches on, Verma crashes out

AUCKLAND: B Sai Praneeth was the lone Indian left in fray at the New Zealand Open Badminton Championship after he entered the semi-finals of the men’s singles event here on Friday. Sameer Verma, seeded fifth, was shown the door by top seed and two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan of China.

Praneeth hardly broke a sweat as he took 28 minutes to quell the challenge of Sri Lanka’s Niluka Karunaratne 21-7, 21-9. Praneeth will next face second seed Jonatan Christie of Indonesia in the semifinals. However, it was curtains for Verma as he failed to counter Lin Dan’s attacking game to lose 19-21, 9-21.

SANDHU LIES SECOND

SEONGNAM (KOREA): Ajeetesh Sandhu slipped into tied-second spot despite dropping three shots in the second round of the GS Caltex Maekyung Open Golf Championship on Friday. Sandhu, who carded four-under 67 on the opening day, shot an even par 71 on the second to be three-under for 36 holes. Shiv Kapur, despite carding one-over 72, moved up from tied 7th to tied 5th,.

PUNJAB VS HARYANA

NEW DELHI: Punjab set up a title clash with Haryana in the junior men’s national hockey championship (A division) being played at Bhopal.in the semis, Punjab beat Odisha 3-1 in penalty shootout. In the other semi-final, Haryana scored 3-2 win over Gangpurodisha.

FOOTBALL ACADEMY

NEWDELHI: The Delhi Soccer Association, renamed Football Delhi (FD), announced on Friday that it planned to set up a centre of excellence for U-16 and U-19 girls. After trials, 25 players have been shortlisted in each group. The players will be provided exposure, FD president Shaji Prabhakaran said. “This is our first step in building a strong base,” he said.

AFC ASIAN CUP

NEW DELHI: India have been clubbed with hosts UAE, Thailand and Bahrain in Group A of the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019.

The top 24 teams from Asia, including hosts United Arab Emirates, were drawn into six groups of four teams each.

Teams drawn together in the group will play each other once and the top two from each group will qualify to the Round of 16 along with the best four thirdplaced teams.

The continental championship will be held across eight stadia in four cities in the UAE — Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Al Ain — from January 5 to February 1, 2019.

This is India’s fourth qualification to the AFC Asian Cup, the last one being in Doha in 2011. India had finished runners-up to Israel in 1964.