Harika enters prequarters, Humpy out

Khanty Mansiysk (Russia): Grandmaster Dronavalli Harika advanced to the pre-quarterfinals, crushing Bela Khotenashvili of Georgia in the second game of the rapid tiebreaker in Round 2 of the World Women’s Chess Championship. After the shocking ouster of Grandmaster Koneru Humpy, Harika did not disappoint, winning with black in the second rapid game played with 25 minutes for each player. Having drawn the second game of the match as white without achieving much, Harika knew her chances were bright in the tiebreaker as she is known to be a good rapid player.

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New Delhi

Austrian Open: Sathiyan shocks world No. 17

G Sathiyan stunned world No. 17 Sangeun Jong in the final match of the preliminary rounds to qualify for the main draw of the Austrian Open table tennis tournament in Linz. Sathiyan began his impressive run in the elite Platinum tournament by beating the Youth Olympics champion Wang Chuqin from China. He tamed Chuqin 4-1 to make the most of his first-round bye in the preliminaries. He won 11-8 12-14 11-8 11-6 18-16. Sathiyan next beat Slovakia’s Lubomir Pistej. In the final preliminary, he erased a two-game deficit to win 6-11 13-11 11-3 11-8 11-6 11-6.

New Delhi

Ramkumar out of singles at Slovak Open 

There was no end to Ramkumar Ramanathan’s lean patch as the Indian Davis Cup player yet again made an early exit, losing in the singles second round at the Slovak Open in Bratislava. Purav Raja and Antonio Sancic lost in the doubles quarterfinals. Seeded sixth, Ramanathan lost 3-6 6-3 2-6 to Germany’s Matthias Bachinger. Ramanathan has not crossed a second round either on the Challenger circuit or on the ATP World Tour since making the summit clash of the Hall of Fame Open in July. In the doubles, though, Ramanathan and Andre Vaselevski moved to the semifinals with a 4-6 6-3 10-8 win over the local wild card pair of Andrej K Martin and Filip Polasek. But Purav Raja and Sancic lost 6-4 4-6 6-10 to top-seeded Britons Ken Skupski and Jonny O’mara.

Margao

Brandon, Edu on target as FC Goa edge out Dynamos 3-2

FC Goa struck twice to eke out a thrilling 3-2 victory over Delhi Dynamos in their Indian Super League match. Bikramjit Singh's long-range strike put the visitors in lead as early as the sixth minute. It took almost 50 minutes and a change of ends for Goa to find the equaliser through Edu Bedia in the 54th minute. 

Galle

Jennings’ ton helps Eng set Lanka a target of 462 

Keaton Jennings’ century helped England put Sri Lanka on the ropes in the first Test, setting the hosts a daunting 462 to win at notoriously low-scoring Galle. England declared at 322/6 on Day 3 with Jennings unbeaten on 146 after a patient innings. Brief Scores: Eng: 342 and 322/6 dec (Jennings 146*, Stokes 62); SL: 203 and 15/0 (Silva 8*, Karunaratne 7*). — Agencies