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Wednesday,
June 11, 2003, Chandigarh, India 
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Hockey success due to teamwork: coach India eyeing Champions Trophy glory: Pillay |
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India pull out of LG Cup Ivanisevic prays for Wimbledon chance
Qualifier Itoh upsets Sunil Kumar Rajasurya excels in junior chess Indian coaches to act as liaison officers Patiala concede big lead
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Hockey success due to teamwork: coach
New Delhi, June 10 “Our showing in Australia is no doubt a big morale booster. But our primary aim is the Athens Olympics and we have still a long way to go,” Rajinder Singh said as the Indian team returned from Australia to a rousing reception here. “We have to be very focussed to achieve our target and need to prepare really hard for that,” he said. India finished runners-up to Australia in the first leg of the tournament in Perth but won the second leg in Sydney, avenging the loss against the hosts. Rajinder Singh said India’s fine performance Down Under was possible due to induction of several members of the junior World Cup winning team, who played admirably well along with the seniors to help India beat formidable opponents, including arch-rivals Pakistan and hosts Australia. “The juniors and seniors gelled well to form effective combinations. That helped our cause a lot in Australia as they played like a team and made our victory possible,” he said. India were unlucky to lose the Perth final as Australia scored an “opportunistic” goal in the last minute to emerge 2-1 winners. However, a week later India settled the score with the hosts when they thrashed them 5-3 after an engrossing battle. Declining to give credit to any one player for India’s show, the chief coach said the victory was largely due to the strategies adopted by the team which paid dividends. “It was total team-work. We worked on our strategies. We had laboured a lot preparing for the meet. Hopefully we will continue in the same vein,” he said. Rajinder Singh said he would be holding meetings with the Indian Hockey Federation president, secretary and the selectors to prepare a team for the future since several members of the team may not continue after the Athens Olympics. “There are some players who are at the fag end of their careers. At most they can play till the Olympics. But after that we have to look for new blood. He also lauded the efforts of veterans like Dhanraj Pillay and Baljit Singh Dhillon. “The senior players have a tremendous impact on the team. The return of Dhillon is a great boost to the side.” Speaking on the violence-marred India-Pakistan tie in Sydney which ended in a draw, the coach said the matches between the Asian rivals always inspire the players to come up with their best. “It is always there when we play Pakistan, be it hockey, cricket or any other game. The matches between the two teams are always exciting.” Rajinder Singh also said their fine showing against the arch rivals during the tour had nothing to do with the absence of some senior players in Pakistan’s side. “They got only one penalty corner against us in Perth. What could have Sohail Abbas done there?” “They had come to play an international tournament and they came with their best team. Absence of one or two players hardly makes any difference to any side.” Short corner specialist Sohail Abbas was one of the three senior members of the Pakistan side to be dropped for the meet on disciplinary grounds. Former captain Mohammad Nadeem and Mohammad Wasim were the other two players who were punished. The coach said the 12-day tour also helped the side sort out some weaknesses and the players will be given a chance to hone their skills before embarking on important tours in future. “We have improved in short corner conversion and defending which had long been the side’s weakness.” IHF president KPS Gill, who was also present at the airport to receive the players, including Dhillon, Prabhjot Singh, Jugraj Singh, Gagan Ajit Singh and Tejbir Singh, congratulated the team on its success. “The performance by our boys was simply superb. They rose to the occasion and played really well to beat the Australians,” Mr Gill said. “It has been a fine showing and I hope the players will continue in the same way in future.” PTI
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India eyeing Champions Trophy glory: Pillay
Bangalore, June 10 India have never won the prestigious Champions Trophy and last year too they had to be content with the fourth place. Its best ever show has been a third place finish. Pillay said the current team was an experimental one, having been knit together keeping in view the Champions Trophy. The mercurial striker, who was earlier mobbed by hockey enthusiasts, said the team was now looking to build on its good performances in Australia and work hard with an aim to win the Champions Trophy as well as the Athens Olympics title. He said the team would assemble at Delhi on June 17 for a short-camp before proceeding on June 21 to take part in the Panasonic Cup in Germany, which begins on June 27. The other two nations featuring in the tournament are Argentina and Spain. Team work was key to success in Australia, Pillay said, adding, he would not like to single out any individual player. But he, however, said Sandeep Michael’s goal against Pakistan was “one of the best goals” he had ever seen. It was hit from “zero angle” and he had seen only Mukesh Kumar come out with such shots. Pillay expressed displeasure over the red card shown to Baljit Singh Dhillon in India’s match against Pakistan, saying it was the reason for India’s failure to beat the arch-rival. Explaining the brief confrontation on the field, he said the matter was resolved after the two captains had a talk and they decided to treat it as a non-issue on mutual understanding. “I don’t know why Dhillon got the red card. I don’t think he should have been given that,” he said. “After Dhillon was shown the red card, we could not keep our 3-1 lead and had to settle for a 4-4 draw. Responding to a question, Pillay said India makes extra effort whenever they face Pakistan on the field. “We play with an attitude that we can lose to any team but not to Pakistan. Pakistan also has the same attitude against India. “When we play Pakistan, we play with full heart. We have to give 200 per cent,” Pillay said. He said he is very satisfied with the performance of the team in the double leg tournament where “penalty corners helped us a lot”. PTI
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India pull out of LG Cup
Kolkata, June 10 “We have decided not to participate as the advancement of the tournament does not leave much time for adequate preparation of our team because of the domestic calendar,” All India Football Federation president Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said here today. The AIFF has intimated its decision to its marketing agent Strata. Mr Dasmunsi had earlier said that the AIFF was making efforts to send the National Football League champions East Bengal to the tournament, but remained silent on the issue today. Referring to the SAAF Cup earlier this year, where India finished a poor third, Mr Dasmunsi said “We don’t want to field an under-prepared team and suffer humiliation once again. At Dhaka, we suffered because of wrong planning. “We held only a short duration camp which did not do any good to our boys who were fatigued and carried injuries from constant club engagements,” he said. Instead, the AIFF was planning to organise several practice matches against Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Iran and Qatar in the lead-up to the Afro-Asian Games in October- November. Mr Dasmunsi said the AIFF executive committee has also given the nod to his proposal to hold the Nehru series involving two or three European teams after the Afro-Asian Games. “We are negotiating with a group in Europe to organise the series of matches to give more international exposure to the Indian team,” he said on the sidelines of the AIFF-organised sports medicine programme here. PTI
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Ivanisevic prays for Wimbledon chance
London, June 10 “I don’t want to go there and crawl like a pig on Center Court,” Ivanisevic said on Monday after losing 2-6, 2-6 to Czech Jan Vacek at the Stella Artois Championships. “If I can not serve, then there is not much for me to do on the grass... perhaps I can cut it or help draw the lines,” he grinned. “Or even serve some strawberries.” Rubbing the sore left elbow which had hampered his usually-lethal serve, Ivanisevic said he would have ultra-sound scans to try and work out what the problem was. “I don’t know what is wrong, nobody knows. I mean I have not played for 11 weeks, everything should be okay.” That 11-week break was caused when the calamitous Croatian stepped on a sea-shell while walking on a Miami beach and the wound became infected. “I don’t know, you never know with me what will happen,” he said, rolling his eyes. “There is always something I might step on. Not shells here, but something. “Still hopefully I will be okay. I mean it is like going to Rome and not seeing the Pope. I am here and I want to see Wimbledon. “When I came in 2001 as a wildcard and won the tournament I said to God, `just let me win this and I don’t care if I play tennis again’”. “Probably he heard me and he is thinking `what are you doing here... go home’”. “So now we are negotiating. It is not so easy to negotiate with the guy upstairs, he is non-negotiable.” Reuters
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Punjab eves lose to Kerala Ludhiana, June 10 Punjab girls began on a sound note, leading by four points (22-18) at the end of the first quarter and continued with their form by establishing six-point (43-37) at the breather. They were placed comfortably midway through the third quarter, gaining 12 points lead. But suddenly, some wrong passes by Paramjit Kaur and Aashna totally changed the complexion of the game. Dependable,
Anjana, the mainstay of Kerala, gave another inspired performance to upset Punjab’s gameplan and finally, the holders proved their supremacy by clinching the cliff-hanger 73-61. She accounted for 18 points while others who contributed in Kerala’s win were Sysil Kurian (16) and Renjushan Mathew (15) while the losers, Paramjit and their captain Taranjit Kaur contributed 19 and 12 points respectively. In the boys section (group-B), Maharashtra scored an upset victory over the last year’s losing finalists, Rajasthan 74-66. By scoring this unexpected win, Maharashtra lads were tied with Rajasthan on the points tally and by virtue of quoteint drwan from the points scored by them minus points conceded by them, they secured a berth in the knock-out phase. In group ‘C’ match, Kerala were threatened by their spirtited opponents, West Bengal but managed to breeze past by three points (73-70) to make entry to the knock-out. In a low-scoring match (girls), Gujarat prevailed over Uttaranchal 31-17 to enter the knock out league. Dhara (15 points), played for Gujarat while Shefali (9) excelled for the losers. In their last league match against
Pondicherry, Haryana lads proved too good to record and impressive win 69-14 to finish at second spot and marched into the knock-out league along with the champions Punjab. The knockout stage, slated for tomorrow is all set to witness keen tussles. The teams which made it to the knockout include (boys): Punjab and Haryana from group A; Rajasthan and Maharashtra from group B; Delhi and Kerala from group C; Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh from group D, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu from group E while in the girl’s section the qualifiers are: Kerala and Punjab from group A; Chhattisgarh from group B; Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat from group C; Maharashtra from group D; Tamil and Karnataka from group E. |
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Qualifier
Itoh upsets Sunil Kumar Chandigarh, June 10 Ajay Ramaswami, the No 4 seed, easily advanced to the second round as his opponent Daniel Kiernan retired after the first set. Ramaswami took the first set 6-3. The thunderstorm and rain here brought down the temperature but left the schedule of matches in disarray. After 4.30 p.m. the matches could start only at 7.45 p.m. Yew Ming Sl was leading against Akash Sharma before rain interrupted play. Sunil Kumar started the match strongly, building up a quick 4-0 lead and pocketed the first set 6-1. Itoh then took up the fight and the two players traded serves in the opening games of the second set. Sunil’s serve was broken again in the ninth game but he broke Itoh in the next game to bring the set level at 5-5. In the tie-breaker Itoh built up a 6-2 lead before Sunil slowly inched back to bring it to 6-5. Chasing almost
irretrievable balls, Itoh did not give Sunil any other point and wrapped up the tie-break and the set 7-6 (7/5). In the third set, an exhausted Sunil fell back 0-3 before holding his serve in the fourth game. Inching back from 15-40 down, he served two aces to hold serve (1-3). At 3-3 after Sunil had broken Itoh’s serve, the Japanese upped the ante, breaking Sunil’s serve and then serving out the match. Seventeenth-seeded Vishal Uppal came back from a set down and was leading in the third set before Janosch Blaha of Germany retired to hand Uppal victory at 1-6, 6-0, 2-0. In other matches Vinod Sridhar, the No 6 seed, easily got past No 12 seed Rishi Sridhar while No 9 seed Manoj Mahadevan lost 2-6, 2-6 to No 10 seed Febi Widhiyanto of Indonesia. Lucky loser Jaco Mathew, who replaced Sandeep Kirtane, stopped the No 11 seed Somchat Ratiwatana of Thailand 6-7 (3/7), 6-4, 6-3 in a tough match. In doubles matches yesterday Prakash and Stephen Amritraj defeated Vishal Punna and Kedar Tembe 6-2, 7-6 while Vijay Kannan and Saurav Panja of India got past Hayato Furukawa of Japan and Tomer Suissa of Israel 6-3, 6-1. |
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Rajasurya excels in junior chess Kozhikode, June 10 Those left behind the leaders with three points apiece (u-14 boys) were Iran’s Toufighi Tamijani Homayoon, Abhijeet Gupta, Rahul Sangma and K Vijay Keerthi (all India), while Pham Bich Ngoc (VIE), in U-14 Girls category, was trailing with 3.5 points in the second spot. In the under-12 boys category, top seed Le Quang Liem (VIE), Y Sandeep and K Narayanan (both IND) were leading the table with 3.5 points each and among Girl third seed Lakshmi Praneeth (IND) was the sole leader. Ngo Dieh Hoa (VIE) was following him with 3.5 points. Yesterday’s sole leader second seed N Srinath was held to a draw by top seed Parimarjan Negi (both IND) but the former was still leading in the fourth round with 3.5 points with compatriot Omkar Sanjay Davate who beat Koohestani Md Azad (Iran) today. Prominent among today’s losers were less-fancied Iran’s Toufighi Tamijani (u-14 boys), P P Prachura (u-12 Boys), Vietnam’s Lunag Nhate Limh (u-14 Girls) and top seed India’s I Ramya Krishna (u-12 Girls). Iran’s Toufighi Tamijani, who won three consecutive rounds earlier, failed to maintain his winning streak against second seed Rohit (IND) while Aswin Jayaram, who was leading at the second spot yesterday, found a tough opponent in Troung Son. Son, in his present form, appears to be the firm favourite to lift the title in u-14 boys section. In the u-14 girls, yesterday’s joint leader Luang Nhate Linh (VIE) lost to Rajasurya J (IND), while lowly-placed Pham Bich Ngoc (VIE) overcame second seed Ketaki S Kulkarni (IND) to remain in the second place. India’s Prachura (u-12 boys), who upset all calculations to lead till the third round, finally gave up to top seed Le Quan Liem (VIE), while third seed Lakshmi Praneetha emerged the sole leader in the girls section defeating top seed Ramya (both IND). Though Srinath was held to a draw by top seed Negi (both IND), the former still managed to remain in lead in the u-10 boys group, while Lakshmi Sahiti overcame Mohana Priya (both IND) to go up the table in the girls category. PTI
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Indian coaches to act as liaison officers Patiala, June 10 Through an order signed by the in charge (national camps), Ms Kamaljit Kooner, it has been clearly mentioned that Mr O.P. Yadav, SAI wrestling coach, will act as liaison officer with Andrez Malina with immediate effect. Mr Yadav will be performing his new duty as liaison officer in addition to his normal duties as wrestling coach at the NIS. Ms Kooner has asked the Director (Administration and Finance) to “cancel the leave of Mr Yadav and recall him to duty.” However, the Regional Director, Mr G.S. Anand, made it clear that this decision was not related to the enquiry which had been instituted by the management to go into the sequence of events leading to Andrez’s “disappearance”. Meanwhile, Andrez Malina returned from Delhi yesterday and quietly slipped into room No 9 of the institute’s guest house. It may be recalled that on June 3, Andrez had boarded the Rajdhani Express on his way to attend the Senior Asian Wrestling Championships which concluded at New Delhi yesterday. However, despite the presence of two project officers of SAI at the New Delhi railway station who had reached there to pick up Andrez, the foreign coach landed up at the Polish Embassy. Apprehending that the situation might snowball into a major controversy, an Assistant Director (AD) was rushed from the NIS to Ambala where an FIR was lodged. |
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Patiala
concede big lead Patiala, June 10 In their second essay, Amritsar piled up more misery on the hosts by piling up 224 for 4 with Saras Thakur scoring an unbeaten 102. Meanwhile, controversy erupted in the contest as the hosts alleged that the visitors were playing with at least three players who were overage. The ‘overage’ cricketers were taken for age determination tests and their reports are awaited. Brief scores: Amritsar (1st innings) 277 all out (Rakesh Mahajan 111, Gur Iqbal Singh 50, Charanjit Singh 37, Gunjot Singh 2 for 71) Patiala (1st innings) 113 all out (Jeewanjot Singh 28, Kunwar Raina 18, Amarpreet Singh 19, Gaurav 4 for 13, Charanjit Singh 3 for 44) Amritsar: 2nd innings: 224 for 4 (Saras Thakur 102 n.o, Gur Iqbal Singh 57, Rakesh 52, Rajwinder 3 for 69, Gunjot 1 for 37). |
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Roux’s departure surprising: Wright New Delhi, June 10 “It has come as a surprise. However, he has made a decision as a professional and we can only respect his judgement,” Wright told PTI from Bangalore where he assisting the England-bound India ‘A’ team.
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Henin-Hardenne eying No 1 spot Paris, June 10 And now Justine Henin-Hardenne, too. For her there may be more to come, but at the moment, she’s delighted to own just one major title. “It’s something I have, and nobody can take it away from me,” she said.
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