Lakshya in Asia Junior C’ship final

JAKARTA: India’s Lakshya Sen crushed home favourite Ikhsan Leonardo Imanuel Rumbay here on Saturday to storm into men’s singles final of the Badminton Asia Junior Championships.

The Indian sixth seed registered an easy 21-7, 21-14 victory in 40 minutes over fourth seeded Kumbay to set-up a title decider against Thai top seed Kunlavut Vitidsarn, who got past Chinese third seed Yupeng Bai with a 21-14, 21-12 victory in the other U-19 semi-final of the day.

If he wins the final, Lakshya will bid to become only the third Indian after Gautam Thakkar (1965) and PV Sindhu (2012) to pocket a gold medal at the Asia Junior Championships.

JEEVAN, DIVIJ OUSTED FROM NEWPORT EVENT

NEW DELHI: India’s challenge has ended in the doubles event of ATP Hall of Fame Open following defeats of Divij Sharan and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan with their respective partners in the semi-finals in Newport, USA.

Second seeded Divij and Jackson Withrow lost 3-6, 4-6 to Jonathan Erlich and Artem Sitak in their semi-final while Jeevan and Austin Krajicek lost a tight match to Marcelo Arevalo and Miguel Angel Reyes-varela.

India’s challenge is still alive in the singles with Ramkumar Ramanathan to fight it out with America’s Tim Smyczek for a place in his first ever ATP singles final. Somdev Devvarman was the last Indian to make it to the singles final on the ATP World Tour event. He had ended a runner-up to Kevin Anderson in 2011 in Johannesburg. IN 2009, he lost the Chennai Open title clash to Marin Cilic.

GRAPPLERS WIN SILVER IN JR ASIAN WRESTLING

NEWDELHI: It was missed chances for India in the men’s freestyle event on the penultimate day of the Junior Asian Wrestling Championships here at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex on Saturday.

Of the three Indians in the gold medal round, none could win title.

Vishal Kaliraman went down fighting to Iran’s Amir Hossein Morteza by 10-7 to win silver in 70kg. Naveen also failed to grab opportunity in the final 57kg match against Gulomjon Abdullaev of Uzbekistan. He lost 7-1.

There was hope that Sachin Giri would win in the 79kg but he too went down tamely to Iran’s Sajjad Saberali Gholami 10-0. Karan won bronze in 65kg by defeating Iran’s Perman Hommadov by 4-0.

DEVI TO COMPETE IN MAE YOUNG CLASSIC

MUMBAI: Braun Strowman, a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) superstar, has announced that Indian wrestler Kavita Devi will compete in the Mae Young Classic Tournament to be held next month in the United States of America.