Indian women continue winning show, enter final
DONGHAE CITY (KOREA) : Defending champions India breezed into the summit clash of the women’s Asian Champions Trophy after edging past Malaysia 3-2, their third consecutive victory here.
India, who beat Japan 4-1 and China 3-1, qualified for the final with a match in hand in their pool. They are top of the table with nine points and will take on Korea in their final pool match on Saturday before Sunday’s final. Gurjit Kaur (17’), Vandana Katariya (33’) and Lalremsiami (40’) sounded the board for India while Nuraini Rashid (36’) and Hanis Onn (48’) scored for Malaysia.
ROCA TO LEAVE BFC
NEW DELHI : Bengaluru FC head coach Albert Roca decided not to renew his contract which ends this month, leaving the side after two highly successful seasons.
The 55-year-old Spaniard, who took up the head coach’s job in July 2016 for a two-year tenure, cited personal reasons for not renewing the contract.
His decision came a day after guiding BFC to the knock-out stages of the AFC Cup, courtesy a 4-0 drubbing of Abahani Limited Dhaka at the Bangladesh capital on Wednesday.
Roca’s impressive two-year spell saw BFC become the first Indian club to make the final of AFC Cup in 2016.
SARMA ELECTED
NEW DELHI: Badminton Association of India (BAI) president Himanta Biswa Sarma was on Thursday elected vice-president of the Badminton Asia Confederation (BAC) during the Annual General Meeting of the continental body in Bangkok.
YUKI BHAMBRI LOSES
NEW DELHI : Yuki Bhambri was knocked out of the Busan Open by China’s Ze Zhang while N Sriram Balaji fought hard before losing a tight second round to second seed Attila Balazs at the Samarkand Challenger.
Second seed Yuki, playing his first tournament after winning the Challenger title at Santaizi in Taiwan, lost 4-6, 3-6 to his 265th ranked Chinese opponent to whom he had never lost before.
BOPANNA OUT
ROME : India’s Rohan Bopanna and his French partner Edouard Roger-vasselin crashed out of the Rome Masters after losing their second round match to Pablo Cuevas and Marcel Granollers. The seventh seeded IndoFrench pair lost 6-7(5), 4-6 in one hour and 32 minutes.
BAISOYA LYING 2ND
HENAN (CHINA): Honey Baisoya fired a five-under 67 in the first round to lie tied second in the Asia-pacific Classic at St Andrews Golf Club, on Thursday.
Baisoya, one of the young stars in Indian golf with six wins in last two-and- half years on the Professional Golf Tour of India, had six birdies against one bogey.