Anand draws with Caruana in Sinquefield Cup

 

Former world champion Viswanathan Anand played out a second straight draw by holding American Fabiano Caruana with ease in the fourth round of the Sinquefield Cup — a part of the Grand Chess tour. Playing his third black in four games, Anand did not show any nervousness caused by losses with the slightly unfavourable colour in his first two games. After an easy draw with Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, this was a confident performance by the Indian who is hoping for a comeback in the tournament.

Sameer Verma overcome Shreyansh Jaiswal to advance to the men’s singles quarterfinals but the Indian mixed pair of Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan lost at the Vietnam Open Grand Prix badminton here today. Also, It was curtains for the men’s doubles duo of Akshay Dewalkar and Pranaav Jerry Chopra, who surrendered 21-1 2, 21-14 in just 35 minutes to Kaixiang Huang and Sijie Wang of China. Verma upstaged Jaiswal 20-22, 26-24, 21-17 after battling it out for one hour and eight minutes.

 

Sumit Nagal came from behind to get the better of second-seeded Sriram Balaji 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 and enter the semifinals of the ITF Men’s Futures tennis tournament here today. In another match, Prajnesh Gunneswaran edged out third-seed Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan in a tie-break.  In the semifinals tomorrow, Prajnesh will take on Ronit Singh Bisht, while Nagal will face VM Ranjeet.  

 

AI regain Tegh Bahadur hockey title 

Air India regained the Guru Tegh Bahadur Hockey title after seven years when they prevailed over Army XI 3-1 via the penalty shoot-out after the two teams finished goalless after  regulation time. AI were indebted to their custodian Adrian D’Souza who got beaten only once out of four shots in the shoot-out. 

 

The Indian footbal team progressed into the final of the SAFF U-19 2015 Championship, beating Bangladesh 4-3 on penalties after a goalless stalemate at the end of 90 minutes in Satdobato, Nepal. India will face Nepal in the title clash on Saturday.

 

Golfer Himmat Rai turned in a rollercoaster one-under 71 in the second round to slip to the tied 35th position in the Ciputra Golfpreneur Tournament. Himmat totals three-under 141 for the tournament after four birdies against three bogeys in a card of 71.  Sutijet Kooratanapisan of Thailand took advantage of his sharp approach shots to seize the halfway lead after signing for a five-under 67.  — Agencies