Sports Shorts: Sindhu wins, Saina suffers loss; Off day for shooters

A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Thursday

Sindhu wins, Saina suffers loss in French Open

Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu stormed into the second round but World Championship bronze medalist Saina Nehwal's run in the French Open ended with a straight-game loss at the $ 325,000 Super Series event, in Paris, on Thursday.

Sindhu dumped Japan's Sayaka Takahashi 21-14, 21-13 to set up a revenge match against China's Chen Yufei. The World No 10 Chinese had knocked Sindhu out in the opening round at Denmark Open.

World Championship silver medallist Sindhu had defeated Spain's Beatriz Corrales 21-19, 21-18 in the opening round on Wednesday.

Former World No 1 Saina, however, failed to get across another Japanese World No 5 Akane Yamaguchi losing 9-21, 21-23 in a 39-minute clash.

This is her second loss to the pint-size dynamo in two weeks. Saina had lost to Yamaguchi in the quarter-finals at Odense.

Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lost 16-21, 14-21 to top seeded Japanese Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi in women's doubles.

Kidambi Srikanth, who had clinched his third title of the season at Denmark Open Super Series premier last week, emerged victories after his opponent Germany's Fabian Roth retired at 0-3 in the opening game.

The World No 8 Indian will face Hong Kong's Wong Wing Ki Vincent, whom he had beaten in straight games last week en route to his title.

Men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty too made a positive start as he disposed off France's Bastian Kersaudy and Julien Maio 21-12, 21-14 in 30 minutes.
They will face Denmark's sixth seed Mads Conrad-Petersen and Mads Pieler Kolding next.

Off day for India as Jitu Rai, Ghatkar fail to enter final

India experienced a disappointing day in the ISSF World Cup Final as both their representatives, ace pistol shooter Jitu Rai and Pooja Ghatkar in women's air rifle, failed to clear the qualification hurdle in New Delhi.

Rai, fresh from his gold medal in the air pistol mixed event along with Heena Sidhu, could not make the final of the men's 10m air pistol and was placed ninth. The top eight make the cut.

Multiple medallist at top global events, including the World Championships and Asian Games, Rai shot a sequence of 94, 96, 96, 97, 95, 94 for a total 572. He shot 95 in the penultimate 10 shot series and eventually dropped to 94 to bow out of the competition at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range.

Eventual gold medal winner Matsuda Tomoyuki of Japan, who qualified eighth, aggregated 573 in the qualification, while Vietnamese Cuong Quoc Tran topped it with 586 but fell behind in the final.

In women's 10m air rifle, India's only hope Pooja Ghatkar finished ninth and failed to make the final.

Ghatkar's series included scores of 101.5, 103.9, 102.2 and an improved 104.8 for a total of 412.4. The lowest qualifying score was 412.5 set by Norway's Malin Westerheim.

Manoj, Mandeep win on Day 2 of Boxing Nationals

Former Commonwealth Games medallists Manoj Kumar and Mandeep Jangra were among the comfortable winners on a fantastic day for Railways Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) on the National Championships, in Visakhapatnam.

The 2010 Commonwealth Games gold-medallist defeated Uttar Pradesh's Rahul Gupta to advance to the second round of the welterweight (69kg) category.

Mandeep, on the other hand, got the better of Tamil Nadu's RP Prakash Raj.

The 2014 Commonwealth Games silver-medallist is returning to action after recovering from a wrist injury and made his debut in the middleweight 75kg category.

Also advancing was King's Cup bronze-medallist Rohit Tokas, who defeated Tripura's Vishnu in his light welterweight (64kg) opening bout.

In another triumph for RSPB, another of their strong medal hopes, Manish Panwar (81kg), also advanced to the second round after beating Services Sports Control Board's Sachin.