PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth advance in Spain Masters

Madrid

Star Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth won their respective first round matches in the Spain Masters. But the doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty withdrew from the tournament after an injury to the former. Sindhu made short work of Jenjira Stadelmann, winning 21-10 21-4. Srikanth defeated Sitthikom Thammassin 21-11 25-27 23-21. B Sai Praneeth beat Jan Louda 21-16 18-21 21-12. Aakarshi Kashyap and Ashmita Chaliha also advanced in women’s singles. The women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost their first round contest to Japan’s Rena Miyaura and Ayako Sakuramoto.

Bengaluru

Kartik tied-fourth, Fitzpatrick leads in Challenge golf

Kartik Sharma (66-67) was the highest-placed Indian golfer at tied-fourth at 11-under at The Challenge here today. Englishman Alex Fitzpatrick seized the halfway lead with a second straight 7-under 6. India’s Aman Raj fired a flawless 67 to move up six spots and end the day in tied-10th at 9-under. Udayan Mane (64) and M Dharma (66) were tied-15th at 8-under.

New Delhi

World Cup: No luck in mixed team skeet for India

The Indian mixed team skeet pairings bowed out in the qualification stage of the ISSF World Cup for Shotgun in Larnaca, Cyprus. The pair of Angad Vir Singh Bajwa and Areeba Khan shot a combined 131 out of 150 to finish 16th. Germans Sven Korte and Nadine Messerschmidt won gold after beating Cyprus’ Petros Englezoudis and Anastasia Eleftheriou 6-4. Man Singh and Raiza Dhillon, the second Indian pair, shot 125 to end in 22nd position.

New Delhi

Dennerby names 22-member squad for Olympics qualifiers

Indian women’s football team coach Thomas Dennerby today named a 22-member squad for the Olympic Qualifier Round 1 to be played in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from April 4. India and the hosts are the only teams in Group G after Turkmenistan pulled out of the tournament. The two teams will play each other twice on April 4 and April 7.

London

Indonesia stripped of U-20 World Cup hosting rights

Indonesia has been stripped of the right to host this year’s Under-20 soccer World Cup, FIFA said today. The decision to stop Indonesia staging the May 20-June 11 tournament was taken after the country’s football federation (PSSI) said it had cancelled the draw because the governor of the largely Hindu island of Bali refused to host Israel’s team.  — Agencies