Indian sports wrap, April 20: Abdulla Aboobacker eighth in Diamond League opener

ATHLETICS

Asian champion triple jumper Abdulla Aboobacker finished eighth, with 16.33m, in the Diamond League season-opener in Xiamen, China, on Saturday.

Abdulla’s best effort came in the fourth jump. World champion Hugues Fabrice Zango was trailing Kerala’s Aboobacker – the lone Indian in the Diamond League here – after three jumps but the Burkina Faso athlete produced a 17.12m effort in his last jump to finished second, behind Portugal’s Olympic champion Pedro Pichardo who won the title with 17.51m.

-Stan Rayan

TENNIS

Rithvik and Niki in Challenger final

Rithvik Bollipalli and Niki Poonacha beat Anirudh Chandrasekar and Hans Verdugo 6-3, 6-4 in the doubles semifinals of the $164,000 Challenger tennis tournament in Acapulco, Mexico.

The unseeded Indian pair was scheduled to face the top seeds Luke Johnson and Skander Mansouri in the final.

Prarthana Thombare won the doubles title in partnership with Arianne Hartono of the Netherlands in the $40,000 ITF women’s event in Shenzhen, China. It was the 28th career doubles title for Prarthana.

The results:

$164,000 Challenger, Acapulco, Mexico

Doubles (semifinals): Rithvik Bollipalli & Niki Poonacha bt Anirudh Chandrasekar & Hans Verdugo (Mex) 6-3, 6-4.

$15,000 ITF men, Shymkent, Kazakhstan

Singles (semifinals): Bekhan Atlangeriev bt Karan Singh 6-3, 6-4.

$40,000 ITF women, Shenzhen, China

Doubles (final): Arianne Hartono (Ned) & Prarthana Thombare bt Madeleine Brooks (GBR) & Eudice Chong (Hkg) 6-3, 6-2.

-Kamesh Srinivasan