TENNIS
Nagal and Ramkumar draw French rivals in opening round of Bengaluru Open
Indian ace Sumit Nagal is pitted against Geoffrey Blancaneaux, while wild card entrant Ramkumar Ramanathan will face Maxime Janvier in the men’s singles main draw of the Bengaluru Open beginning here on Monday.
World ranked 121 Nagal will aim to extend his dominance over French player Blancaneaux, whom he has beaten three times, including in the Australian Open Qualifiers.
India No 2 Ramkumar has a 1-1 head-to-head record against Janvier of France and if he clears the first-round hurdle, he is likely to run into top-seed Italian Luca Nardi, who has been drawn to meet a qualifier in his opening round.
Australian Adam Walton has been seeded third and will open his campaign against Indian wild card entrant Prajwal Dev.
There are nine Indians in the doubles main draw.
N Sriram Balaji and Andre Begemann of Germany will clash with the German duo of Mark Wallner and Jakob Schnaitter.
The ATP Challenger event is being organised by Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association at KSLTA Stadium. Qualifying rounds began on Sunday, while the final is scheduled on February 18.
– PTI
FOOTBALL
Kajol’s double strike helps Sethu FC cross East Bengal bridge
Kajol D’Souza scored a brace to help Sethu FC earn its third win in the IWL 2023-24 campaign, defeating East Bengal 2-0 at the Tilak Maidan on Sunday.
This much-needed victory meant that Sethu could now put its three-match losing streak behind them.
The Madurai-based club, playing out of Goa this season, has now accrued 10 points from eight games, but remains rooted to fifth in the IWL table, behind HOPS, which is on the same number of points, but ahead due to a better head-to-head record.
However, neither team looks likely to take its battle into the championship zone since Gokulam Kerala FC, Kickstart FC, and Odisha FC stand way ahead in the table — the three-way battle for the title taking place nine points ahead of the Madurai club.
East Bengal, on the other hand, continues to languish deep into the bottom half, just ahead of Sports Odisha with only four points in its pocket. Sunday’s defeat was its seventh in nine outings.
Sethu FC is not having a great season either, but against East Bengal, it looked far more cohesive and definitely initiated better penetrative moves.
Its forwards, Malvika P, Kajol D’Souza, and Kaviya Pakkirisamy, who had to leave the pitch in the second half because of an injury, did a good job of keeping the rival defence busy regularly.
Sethu FC could have added a few more but missed chances, and its tendency to attempt unrealistic long rangers restricted them to a couple.
Kajol D’Souza scored the first goal of the match, neatly converting a penalty kick in the seventh minute after an East Bengal defender handled the ball inside the area.
Her second goal came in the 82nd minute when she caught the defence off-guard to round off the goalkeeper before pushing the ball over the line.
The losing side failed to make much of an impact in the away outing. This was despite the fact that the East Bengal players, who were on duty for the India U19 team in Dhaka recently, returned to strengthen the side.
Sibani Devi, who did well in SAFF U19, couldn’t produce the same form at the Tilak Maidan.
Another junior international, Sulanjana Raul, came on in the second half and made some inroads. One of her free-kicks from outside the box missed the target by a whisker and sailed over the bar.
-PTI
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