Sports Shorts: Paes-Raja lose in Round 1 at Delray Beach

A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Wednesday.

Leander Paes and Purav Raja crashed out of the Delray Beach Open after a straight-sets defeat in the opening round of the men's doubles event, on Tuesday.

The unseeded Indian pair lost 3-6, 2-6 to the American combination of the Jack Sock and Jackson Withrow.

It was second setback for 44-year-old Paes after his early exit in New York last week.

Paes had earlier made the third round of the Australian Open and also reached the final of two back-to-back Challengers, winning one.

Divij Sharan now remains the lone Indian in doubles. He and his American partner Scott Lipsky will take on the Netherlands' Wesley Koolhof and Artem Sitak of New Zealand in their tournament opener. 

Guru, Sourabh, Sameer in second round of Swiss Open

Indian shuttlers RMV Gurusaidutt, Sourabh Verma and Sameer verma entered the second round of the Swiss Open World Tour Super 300 tournament after winning their opening round matches, in Basel (Switzerland), on Wednesday.

Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Gurusaidutt, who is returning to the game after recovering from ankle surgery, defeated Brazil's Ygor Coelho 21-16, 21-11.

Sourabh then prevailed over Israel's Misha Zilberman 21-11, 21-18 while his younger brother Sameer overcame France's Thomas Rouxel 22-20, 21-10 in another opening round men's singles match.

Sameer will face Japan's Yu Igarashi, while Sourabh and Guru will face off in an all Indian second-round clash.

Sai Uttejitha Rao Chukka eked out a hard-fought 25-23, 21-16 win over Germany's Yvonne Li to set up a meeting with Japan's Minatsu Mitani.

Meanwhile, Abhishek Yelegar lost 14-21, 13-21 to England's top seed Rajiv Ouseph while Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli, Riya Mukherjee and Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka failed to cross the opening hurdle in women's singles.

Lyanny Alessandra Mainaky of Indonesia defeated Sri Krishna 21-11, 21-15, Riya fought hard before suffering a 21-13, 12-21, 17-21 loss to fourth seeded Russian Evgeniya Kosetskaya and Vaishnavi went down 19-21 17-21 to Julie Dawall Jakobsen of Denmark.

Vikas, Amit in quarters of Strandja Memorial boxing

Seasoned Vikas Krishan and fast-rising Amit Panghal advanced to the quarter-finals of the 69th Strandja Memorial Boxing Tournament for men and women, in Sofia (Bulgaria), on Wednesday.

Former World and Asian Games medallist Vikas (75kg), who is making a comeback after recovering from a hand injury, defeated Morocco's Amer Gnifid to make the last-eight stage.

World Championships quarter-finalist Amit (49kg), a gold-medallist from last month's India Open, won his last-16 stage bout, getting the better of Mauritian Sharvin Kumar.

Also advancing to the quarter-finals was Manish Panwar (81kg), who beat a Moroccan in Mohammed Amin.

However, it was early ouster for veteran Manoj Kumar (69kg), a former Commonwealth Games gold-medallist.

The 31-year-old went down to Morocco's Abdelkabir Bellassek in his pre-quarterfinal bout, which was also his first of the tournament.

India are assured of four medals so far in the tournament courtesy women boxers Seema Punia (+81kg), Saweety Boora (75kg), Mena Kumari Devi (54kg) and Bhagyabati Kachari (81kg).

While Saweety and Meena won their quarterfinal contests, Seema and Bhagyabati got byes.