AT A GLANCE

Daily roundup: Silver for Sakshi, Vinesh; Murray crashes out and more

sakshi-asian Sakshi Malik (left) fights with Uzbekistan's Nabira Esenbaeva in the quarterfinal of the Asian Wrestling Championship at IG Stadium in Delhi | PTI

Silver lining for Sakshi, Vinesh
Rio Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik settled for silver, losing to Risako Kawai of Japan in the women's 60kg category, while Vinesh Phogat (55kg) also fell short in the final at the Asian Wrestling Championships in Delhi. Rio Olympics gold medallist Kawai hardly broke sweat as she outplayed Sakshi 10-0. Competing for the first time in women's 60kg category after moving up the weight division from 58kg, Sakshi never looked in contention.
Vinesh Phogat, who seemed struggling on the mat, lost her gold medal match to Japan's Nanjo Sae 4-8. In women's 48kg category, Ritu Phogat settled for the bronze medal in the 48kg category. Ritu got a walkover by China's Yanan Sun, who pulled out of the match owing to an injury. Anil Kumar and Jyoti bagged a bronze each in their respective categories on the second day. Anil staged a strong comeback to defeat Muhammadali Shamsiddinov of Uzbekistan 7-6 in a bitterly contested bronze medal play-off in the men's Greco-Roman 85kg category. Jyoti also finished on the podium in women's 75kg event.

Pro Kabaddi League gets new owners
Cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar is among the new owners of the four new VIVO Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) teams that will participate in the fifth season of the tournament, to be played from July to October. Sachin will team up with serial entrepreneur N. Prasad as the co-owner of the Tamil Nadu-based franchise while the JSW Group, Adani Group and GMR Group are the three other owners of the Haryana, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh teams. The yet-to-be named new franchises would operate under Iquest Enterprises Pvt Ltd (Consortium) for Tamil Nadu, Adani Wilmar Ltd for Gujarat, GMR League Games Pvt Ltd for Uttar Pradesh and JSW Sports Pvt Ltd for Haryana.
This expansion adds to an already impressive line-up of eight franchises based out of major metros in the country—Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Patna, Pune and Jaipur.

Djokovic, Nadal advance, Murray crashes out
Number one seed Andy Murray was knocked out of the last 16 of the Mutua Madrid Open even as Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal progressed to the next round. The Scot was defeated in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 by unseeded 20-year-old Croatian Borna Coric in what is arguably the best result of his career. The player, who is currently ranked 49th in the world, outplayed Murray, who has been in poor form of late and only recently lost in the semi-finals in the Godo Tournament in Barcelona.
Novak Djokovic progressed into the quarterfinals when he defeated Feliciano Lopez 6-4, 7-5 in straight sets. Rafael Nadal needed just an hour and 12 minutes before knocking out Australian 16 seed Nick Kyrgios 6-3, 6-1. Japan's number 6 seed, Kei Nishikori also enjoyed a straight-set win over a Spaniard, as he beat veteran David Ferrer 6-4, 6-3 to also move into the last eight.

Ajax, Manchester United set up final clash
Two of continent's historic football clubs, Manchester United and AFC Ajax laboured past Celta Vigo and Lyon, respectively, to set up the final of UEFA Europa League. Ajax resisted Ligue 1 side Lyon's 3-1 home win to bag an aggregate score at 5-4 in France, while United built on their one-goal advantage in the first leg for a 2-1 aggregate against Celta Vigo in Manchester. Four-time European champions Ajax will meet three-time continental champions United in the May 24 final in Stockholm. The winner will secure a berth in the 2017-2018 Champions League group stage.

Bagan write to AFC, AIFF for continental slot
City football giants Mohun Bagan shot letters to All India Football Federation (AIFF) President Praful Patel and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) General Secretary Dato Windsor John asking them to reserve two AFC slots for I-League clubs as has been the norm so far. The AIFF last Saturday had ruled out an immediate merger of the I-League and the Indian Super League (ISL), deciding that the former will remain the country's top-tier competition for now. Earlier, it was mooted that ISL will be named the official league with 11 teams, including Bengaluru FC, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. But after Aizawl FC became the first team from northeast to win the I-League and threatened to fast unto death if they were to be relegated, the landscape changed. Despite being the champions, Aizawl would have been relegated if ISL was made the main league as they did not have any place in the franchise league.
Arch-rival East Bengal will also follow suit.

Bengaluru FC pick up ISL bid documents
Bengaluru FC picked up the 'Invitation to Bid' documents of the Indian Super League, expressing interest to own a franchise in the tournament which is set to be expanded with the addition of a maximum of three teams this season. The two time I-League champions picked up the bid documents on the first day of the opening of the tender. Yesterday, the ISL had announced that bids would be invited in respect of 10 cities—Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Cuttack, Durgapur, Hyderabad, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Ranchi, Siliguri and Thiruvananthapuram—and one to three new winning bidders will be awarded the right to participate in the ISL. The floating of the tender through 'Invitation to Bid' (ITB) will continue till May 24. Kolkata's Mohun Bagan and East Bengal have already said that they were not interested in joining the ISL.


Justice Mukul Mudgal heads to FIFA
Retired judge of Delhi High Court Justice Mukul Mudgal was elected as the Chairman of FIFA Governance committee at the world football governing body's 67th Congress. According to a letter released before the representatives from all 211 Member Associations at Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre here, Olli Rehn from Finland, who is the former Vice-President of the European Commission, will be Justice Mudgal's deputy.
Justice Mudgal, who served as the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court from 2009 to 2011, was the first choice for the FIFA Council and his name was proposed for the vacant position after (former chief) Miguel Maduro was removed for his role. Maduro allegedly played a role in blocking Russian World Cup official Vitaly Mutko from retaining his seat on ruling council. Mudgal, who until now served as the Deputy Chairman of the committee after being appointed in May last year during the FIFA Congress in Mexico, will take the office for four years effective immediately. He had headed the IPL spot-fixing probe.

This browser settings will not support to add bookmarks programmatically. Please press Ctrl+D or change settings to bookmark this page.
Topics : #sports

Related Reading