Sports Shorts: Bopanna-Sharan pair for Asian Games

The AITA, on Saturday, agreed to field Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan as a team at the Asian Games on request of the two players which means that veteran Leander Paes will team up with young Sumit Nagal.
Bopanna and Sharan had requested AITA and the Sports Ministry to pair them.

The AITA at its Executive Meeting (EC) discussed the matter and accepted Bopanna and Sharan's request.

"Yes, the EC has decided that Rohan and Divij will play as a team," a source said.

Since Ramkumar Ramanathan and Prajnesh Gunneswaran will focus on singles, the third singles player left in the squad is Nagal.

Paes and Nagal will be fielded as India's second team at the Asian Games, scheduled to begin in Indonesia from August 18.

Bhullar takes pole position, in sight of 9th Asian Tour title

Gaganjeet Bhullar put himself in prime position for his ninth Asian tour title as he carded a second successive six-under 65 to share the pole position with Thailand's Jazz Janewattananond after the third round of Queen's Cup in Pattaya.

Bhullar moved from Tied-3rd to share the first position with a total of 15-under 198.

Janewattananond (68), who has just one Asian Tour win, had a share of the lead with Bhullar.

Bhullar, who had blazed through the back nine of the Phoenix Gold Golf and Country Club yesterday with a six-under 29, shot four-under 31 on the same stretch.

He was seven-under through 16 holes, before he bogeyed the 17th. He narrowly missed a birdie on Par-5 18th and was joint first. Bhullar has had one bogey each day.

Bhullar said, kept the ball in play today. I hit a lot of fairways and a lot of greens. I just kept on giving myself a lot of birdie opportunities. I got my first birdie on the fourth and made a good par save on the sixth. I drove into the water hazard and had to take a drop there. Hit my second shot onto the green and two-putted for par.

made a really good birdie on the ninth. I hit my driver off the tee and had about 142 yards to the stick and I hit it to about six inches for birdie there. I made three straight birdies after the turn which was great. The only bogey I had was on the 17th hole and that was a total misread off my club.

will just continue to do my own thing and try and repeat what I did in the last 54 holes. The game's feeling good and hopefully hole some putts.

Rashid Khan (68) moved to T-11, while Khalin Joshi (67) also had a nice upward move to T-23 and S Chikkarangappa (70) was T-38th. Honey Baisoya (73) and Viraj Madappa (71) were both T-55th and Himmat Rai (74) was T-66.

The 22-year-old Jazz, had one birdie on second in his first 14 holes and then had three birdies and one bogey in his last four holes.

Pavit Tangkamolprasert of Thailand trails the leading duo by one in third place on his own following a 65.

Shubhankar makes the cut in France

Shubhankar Sharma bounced back from a first round disappointment to make the cut at the HNA Open de France, carding a 2-under 69 in the second round.

The 21-year-old youngster, who has won twice in the ongoing European Tour season, totalled 3-over 145 to make the cut which fell at 4-over.

Earlier SSP Chawrasia (75-74) missed the cut.

In the third round, Sharma again overcame the disaster of being 3-over after 10 to get three birdies, including two on last two holes to finish at even par 71 for the day.

At 3-over 216 for 54 holes he was T-46 as many other players were still on the course.

Marcus Kinhult tamed Le Golf National with a stunning round of 65 that handed him a two-shot lead heading into the weekend.

The Swede's 65 was the lowest round of the week and he was 6-under after 36 holes and had just begun his third round.

The field includes World Number 2 Justin Thomas (70-70), who was T-5 and World Number Five Jon Rahm (70-69) was third behind Chris Wood (70-68).