India down hosts NZ 3-1 in four-nation hockey
A clinical attack saw India beat New Zealand 3-1 in the final round-robin match of the double-leg Four-Nations Invitational Hockey Tournament on Saturday. India will play the final on Sunday against Belgium, who beat Japan 4-1.
It was India’s young brigade of Harmanpreet Singh (2nd), Dilpreet Singh (12th) and Mandeep Singh (47th) which scored after the team had suffered a 0-2 loss against Belgium in their previous match. “We started the match much better today and I saw individual improvement. It’s important for the players to keep pushing themselves,” said chief coach Sjoerd Marijne.
ANAND DRAWS
WIJK AAN ZEE: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand played out an easy draw with black against local star Anish Giri but slipped to joint second spot after the sixth round of Tata Steel Chess here. Having won two of the first three games, this was Anand’s third straight draw. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan emerged as the sole leader when lady luck smiled on him from a nearly lost position against GM B Adhiban.
CHENNAI OPEN CHESS
CHENNAI: Chennai-based Grandmaster RR Laxman of ICF defeated GM Sivuk Vitaly of Ukraine in the fourth round of the Chennai Open International Grandmaster Chess.
MALVIKA, PRATUL WIN
BAREILLY: Malvika Bansod and Pratul Joshi clinched the women’s singles and men’s singles titles in the All India Senior Ranking Badminton.
HARYANA TRIUMPH
NEW DELHI: Asian championship silver-medallist Sumit Malik overcame Satender Malik to guide Haryana Hammers to a 4-3 win over Mumbai Maharathi in the Pro Wrestling League.
KAPUR T13
SENTOSA, SINGAPORE: Shiv Kapur navigated his way carefully for an even par score through 10 holes to provisionally lie at Tied13th place.