Sindhu marches into quarter-finals; Saina, Srikanth exit

MANILA, PHILIPPINES: PV Sindhu notched up a 21-16, 21-16 win over 100th-ranked Yue Yann Jaslyn Hooi of Singapore in the women’s singles competition to advance to the quarter-finals of Badminton Asia Championships here on Thursday.

Sindhu set up a clash against third seed Chinese He Bing Jiao, whom she had beaten for a bronze at the Tokyo Olympics.

The Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also made it to the last-eight stage with a 21-17, 21-15 win over Japan’s Akira Koga and Taichi Saito. However, it was curtains for Saina Nehwal and World Championships silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth.

Saina lost 21-12, 7-21, 13-21 to world No. 16 Chinese Wang Zhi Yi. Srikanth, seeded seventh, went down to China’s Weng Hong Yang 16-21, 21-17, 17-21 in a men’s second round match.

Serie A: Bologna dent Inter Milan’s quest

BOLOGNA: A howler from Inter Milan’s stand-in goalkeeper Ionut Radu cost his side dear as they slipped to a 2-1 defeat at Bologna on Wednesday, with Simone Inzaghi’s team missing the chance to go top of Serie A.

The match was originally due to take place in January but was postponed after numerous Covid-19 cases were discovered in the Bologna squad.

A victory for Inter from the game in hand on AC Milan would have seen them climb back to the Serie A summit. The defeat leaves them on 72 points from 34 matches, two points behind leaders Milan.

MI rope in Kartikeya for injured Arshad

MUMBAI: Mumbai Indians have roped in left-arm spinner Kumar Kartikeya Singh as a replacement for injured Mohd Arshad Khan for the remainder of the Indian Premier League “for the price of ₹20 lakh,” the IPL stated in a media statement on Thursday.

Singh, who represents Mad

hya Pradesh in domestic cricket, has so far played nine first-class matches, 19 List A games and eight T20s, picking up 35, 18 and 9 wickets, respectively.

KIUG: Swimmer Nataraj bags three gold medals

BENGALURU: Olympian swimmer Srihari Nataraj on Thursday claimed three gold medals as hosts Jain University dominated the pool by winning 14 yellow metals at the Khelo India University Games (KIUG) here.

Nataraj, representing Jain University, won the 100m freestyle, 50m backstroke and 4x200m freestyle relay, setting new KIUG records in all the events. Jain University’s Siva Sridhar pocketed seven gold and two silver medals.

MCA Under-19 cricket tournament brief scores (semi-finals): Bombay Gymkhana 156 in 36.1 overs (Sumit Mishra 61; Prayag Kumar 4/25, Vedant Gadia 3/50) lost to

157/4 in 36.1 overs by 6 wickets,

245/9 in 40 overs (Nutan Goel 100) beat

125 in 28.3 overs (Nutan Goel 3/12) by 120 runs

10th Insurance Shield T20 inter-office tournament brief scores: Mumbai Police Gymkhana CC ‘B’ 119/9 in 20 overs (Vishweshwar Singh 3/18, Raj Madhawan 3/22) beat

117/8 in 20 overs by 2 runs,

146/3 in 20 overs (Shaun Rodrigues 49) beat

121 in 18.4 overs (D Singh 4/18, Sangam Khakke 3/17) by 25 runs.