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Final set for sibling rivalry
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CWG stadia work on course
Top players for World Badminton Championship
Dhruv Pandove Trophy
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Final set for sibling rivalry
London, July 2 “This is my eighth final and a dream come true to be here again and have the opportunity to hold the plate up," the five-time champion said in a courtside interview. “She’s (Safina) so talented and she's played so consistently in the last year and I went out there and was able to really stay focused. I have so much experience on this court it helps a lot.” Second seed Serena Williams recovered from match point down to beat Russian fourth seed Elena Dementieva 6-7, 7-5, 8-6 in a nailbiting semifinal. In a tournament where spectacular tennis has been conspicuous by its absence from the women’s draw, the two produced a semifinal worthy of the name with a riveting display of power-hitting from the baseline and wily court craft. “Elena played so well and we gave the crowd a wonderful match,” Serena said in a courtside interview. The Russian became the first player to take a set off the American at the All England Club this year by winning the tiebreak 7-4. — Reuters Paes-Black in mixed doubles semis Top seeds Leander Paes and his Zimbabwean partner Cara Black breezed into the semifinals of Wimbledon’s mixed doubles event with a facile straight set win over 11th seeded Andre Sa and Ai Sugiyama here today. The Indo-Zimbabwean duo needed a little over an hour to swamp the Sa-Sugiyama pair 6-3, 6-3 in the lop-sided quarterfinal match. In the semifinals, they will take on 12th seeded pair of Australian Stephen Huss and his Spaniard partner Virginia Ruano Pascual. — PTI
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India face daunting task against Windies Match Begins
Gros Islet, July 2 Barring a couple of individual performances, the Indians have generally been a pale shadow of themselves in the first two matches of the four-match series and Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team has a daunting task to put it across the hosts. With the series locked 1-1, both the teams will go all out for a victory at the Beausejour Stadium and thereby ensure that they cannot lose the series. The Indians, desperate to make amends for their early exit from the Twenty20 World Cup in England last month, have not really looked convincing in both the matches and their perennial weakness to short-pitched stuff has come back to haunt them. While the visitors snatched a narrow 20-run victory in the first game at the Sabina Park in Kingston, they suffered an embarrassing eight-wicket drubbing in the second match which will no doubt serve as a morale-booster for the Caribbean team. The huge defeat will act as a wake-up call for Dhoni's bravehearts who had a string of victories to their credit till only a couple of months back. Suddenly, the team finds itself under tremendous pressure. In the absence of star performers like Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, the top order batting has lacked the firepower and the poor form of Gautam Gambhir has only compounded India's misery. Tamil Nadu's wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik has been tried out as Gambhir's opening partner in this series with mixed results. He scored 67 in the first match, but managed just 4 in the second game and it will be interesting to see whether the team management persists with him. The failure of Rohit Sharma has been a cause of concern for the Indians and the young batsman has himself to blame for the rut as his shot selection has been atrocious. The Caribbeans have exploited India's weakness to short pitched deliveries to a great extent and the batsmen have now been left with no option but to find a solution. Dhoni himself has admitted that the batting has not been of a high order and has told his teammates to play more responsibly. “We should have paid a little more respect to the bowlers (in the last match). The wicket was a bit difficult, it was swinging around a bit. We didn’t judge the wicket well and just went around playing our strokes which really brought our downfall,” Dhoni said. “Once you lose too many wickets then the only thing that you are doing is catching up. RP and me had a partnership otherwise it would have been quite embarrassing,” he said.
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Reality Check!
Chandigarh, July 2 Real have already spent more than £170m this year and a bid for Bayern Munich’s Frank Ribery and Valencia’s David Silva might be on the cards. This means that they will have spent almost five times more than the collective amount spent by Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal - the top four English clubs - till date. This, in theory atleast, will tilt the odds in the La Liga and the UEFA Champions League in Real’s favour. Getting talented players is every club’s right, but the price you pay for them should not cost the collective welfare of the sport. Real’s policy will inflate the price of players across the board and this will hurt other clubs - even the big ones - who by no means share Real’s clout. Real are a club without too much success lately and under massive debt. But unlike a Manchester United or Arsenal, they don’t worry about paying it back every year and are registered as a non-profit social trust. Besides the massive hold they have in the power echelons in Spain ensures that no bank (most of which are state-owned) can pressurize them to pay up. They have also made a mockery of clubs like Manchester United and Lyon. The English champions had said they would not listen to a bid below £70m, in probably an attempt to discourage a potential bid for Ronaldo, but Real responded with an even higher figure. Even with French club Lyon, the club had asked for £25m for their star striker Karim Benzema and Real paid £30m. Real is clearly too big a figure in club football to fail. But while keeping the image of the Galacticos afloat, they might just sink many smaller ships. Money alone cannot guarantee success in sports and Real - who still are frail in defence - are not guaranteed anything. But this will take away the concept of a one-club man from a sport that has always taken pride in its Maldinis, Tony Adams and Francesco Tottis. Lets just hope - for the good of the game - that the kid on the street, with a ball at his feet, dust in his face and a defender at his back still knows that the goal is to hit the back of the net and not net income. |
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CWG stadia work on course
New Delhi, July 2 Similarly, only 35 per cent work had been completed on the main ground for rugby at the Delhi University. But otherwise, work on most of the other stadiums, particularly the main Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and the Indira Gandhi indoor stadium, which are among the seven stadiums being managed by the Sports Authority of India, were moving at a fast pace. Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Pratik Prakashbapu Patil stated in the Rajya Sabha today, in a written reply to a question by Rahul Bajaj, that since all the sports infrastrucutre projects will be completed well before the Commonwealth Games to be held in 2010, it compared well with the commitments made by the Delhi Government and the Indian Olympic Association. In reply to another question by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister informed the house that the work at the Siri Fort complex and the Yamuna Sports Complex of the DDA, the Talkatora indoor stadium of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation and the RK Khanna tennnis stadium have fallen marginally behind schedule, but the shortfall against targeted percentage would be bridged as the pace had now picked up. He said work at the Talkatora swimming pool complex, the cycling velodrome and the wrestling stadium at the Indira Gandhi indoor stadium complex and the Karni Singh shooting range suffered a delayed start due to delay in certain clearances and on design issues. |
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Top players for World Badminton Championship
New Delhi, July 2 Hyderabad is sparing no effort to make the mega badminton event a stunning success as the Andhra Pradesh capital is now pride itself as the “mecca” of Indian badminton. Indian players have notched up some impressive wins recently such as the group promotion in the Sudirman Cup, Sayali Gokhale’s Spanish Open title win, Anup Sridhar’s victory over World No 2 Peter Gade and Saina Nehwal's triumph at the Indonesian Open Super Series. Most of India’s top badminton players flourished after they shifted base to
Hyderabad. They include Saina Nehwal, Jwala Gutta, Chetan Anand and Anup Sridhar. Former All-England champion Pullela
Gopichand, who runs a badminton academy in Hyderabad, is proving to be successful coach for many an emerging
talent. Organisers of the Hyderabad super event believe that the game will get a big boost in the country if the Indian shuttlers do well in the World Championship. |
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Dhruv Pandove Trophy
Chandigarh, July 2 Brief Scores: Ropar 1st innings: 149 Amritsar 1st Innings: 185 Ropar 2nd Innings: 113 (Arjun 30, Manpreet 15; Kamal Passi 3/2, Vinay Chaudhary 3/45, Amritsar 2nd Innings : 78 for 2 (Aman Bawa 33). Brief Scores: Muktsar 1st innings: 81 Jalandhar 1st Innings: 298 for 5 (Abhishek Gupta 101*, Pargat 55; Harjit 3/84). Muktsar 2nd Innings: 112 (Mahavir 35, Pargat 5/16, Gurkirat 3/44). Brief Scores: Patiala: 228 for 3 (Jiwanjot 81, Gauravpreet 77*). The first innings could not be completed the match ended in a draw and each team got 1 point. The 4th match which was to be played at Chandigarh between Chandigarh and Mohali could not be played due to rain was called off and each team got 1 point. |
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Venus Williams will play her sister Serena in Saturday’s Wimbledon final after a crushing 6-1, 6-0 victory over top seed Dinara Safina of Russia on Thursday. Venus's place in an eighth final, and fourth against her sister, was never in doubt as the Russian failed to come to terms with Williams's powerful hitting from the back of the court in a match which lasted just 51 minutes.
