Day brightens as storm hits Masters practice
Severe thunderstorms shortened Monday’s first official practice session for the 81st Masters, but the outlook brightened for Australia’s Jason Day ahead of the year’s first major. World number three Day played nine holes at Augusta National, his fourth consecutive day on the fabled course, before it was closed in early afternoon when the area fell under a tornado warning.
Day withdrew from the World Golf Championships Match-play event two weeks ago to be with his mother, Dening, as she faced cancer surgery. Her uncertain prognosis through chemotherapy kept his status in doubt for the Masters. But Day said his mother is improving and she might even be at the course on the weekend to watch him compete.
A severe thunderstorm closed the course for more than an hour and forced evacuation of the course even before the tornado warning shut down the course. Heavy rains and strong thunderstorms are expected again on Wednesday on the eve of opening round.
WOLVES HALT BLAZERS’ VICTORY RUN
Karl-anthony Towns scored 34 points and pulled down 12 rebounds as the Minnesota Timberwolves cooled off the redhot Portland Trail Blazers with a 110-109 NBA victory on Monday.
Portland’s Damian Lillard had a solid look at what would have been a game-winning shot, but his jumper lipped out at the buzzer and the Blazers’ six-game winning streak came to an end. At 38-39, Portland are clinging to eighth spot in the Western Conference, 1 1/2 games ahead of the Denver Nuggets. They play their next three games against playoffbound teams.
MANOJ ADVANCES; SHIVA, VIKAS BOW OUT
Former Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Manoj Kumar (69kg) advanced to the quarters but World Championships medallists Vikas Krishan (75kg) and Shiva Thapa (60kg) lost in the opening round of the Thailand International Boxing Tournament in Bangkok on Tuesday.
Manoj defeated Vietnam’s Huynh Ngoc Vien to enter the last eight stage.
Also advancing to the quarters were Rohit Tokas (64kg) and K Shyam Kumar (49kg). While Rohit defeated Australia’s Muhammed Demirkaya, Shyam got the better of local favourite Thani Narinram.
Both Shyam and Rohit are former medallists at this event having won a gold and bronze respectively in the 2015 edition.