Johnson in joint lead, Lahiri tied-27

Dustin Johnson, the world No. 1, hopes that a new putter and a new putting method will help turn around his fortunes at a premier golf championship that has mystified him for years. Johnson got off to the right start at the Players Championship, taming the sometimes diabolical TPC Sawgrass to shoot a relatively breezy 6-under 66 and join five others with the Day 1 lead.

Joining Johnson atop the leaderboard were fellow US Open winner Webb Simpson, Chesson Hadley, Matt Kuchar, Patrick Cantlay and in-form Swede Alex Noren.

LAHIRI CARDS 69 ON A DAY OF LOW SCORES

Indian golfer Anirban Lahiri shot a solid 3-under 69 to be Tied-27th even as the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass yielded a lot of low scores on the opening day

Lahiri, who exited last year with a disastrous 10 on the final Par-4 18th in the second round, got some revenge with a birdie on it. He had six birdies against three bogeys and was bogey-free on the tougher front stretch.

SATHIYAN SIGNS UP FOR GERMAN CLUB

NEWDELHI: India’s top table tennis player G Sathiyan, who won three medals at his Commonwealth Games debut last month, has signed with German Bundesliga’s top division club ASV Grunwettersbach Tischtennis.

He was also a part of the Indian men’s team that finished 13th, its best ever performance, in the World Team Championships in Sweden last week.

“I am really happy on becoming the second Indian to sign up with a club after Sharath Kamal in the most prestigious league in the world. It will be a great experience,” he said.

~75CR DEAL FOR INDIAN BADMINTON

NEW DELHI : In a big boost to badminton in India, the national federation has inked a ~75 crore deal with sports equipment manufacturer Yonex Sunrise, which will now supply equipments to BAI for all their tournaments, camps and academies in India.

In return, Yonex Sunrise will hold title sponsorship rights for all tournaments held under the aegis of the Badminton Association of India (BAI) for next three years.

TABLE TENNIS PLAYERS SHINE IN THAILAND

NEWDELHI: India’s young table tennis players excelled in the SET Thailand Junior and Cadet Open, winning four bronze in team events in Bangkok on Thursday. The junior boys, spearheaded by Manav Thakkar, Manush Shah, Jeet Chandra and Snehit S made it to the medal rounds of this Golden Series event, a part of the 2018 ITTF World Junior Circuit. They recorded a hard-fought 3-1 victory over Singapore A. But lost 2-3 to France-iran pair.

In junior girls section, Yashini Sivasankar, Archana Kamat and Selena Selvakumar whipped the Croatia-finland pair 3-0 before losing 1-3 to China A to settle for bronze.