A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Friday
Leander Paes and Joe Salisbury once again won a tense super tie-breaker to progress to the semi-finals of the US$125,000 RBC Tennis Championships of Dallas.
The top-seed Indo-American team overcame a spirited challenge from Ruben Gonzales and Hunter Reese 6-3, 2-6, 17-15 in the quarter-finals of the ATP Challenger event.
In the last match also, Paes and Salisbury had won a long super tie-break with an 18-16 scoreline.
In a match that lasted 91 minutes, Paes and Salisbury won 67 points to 60 of their rivals.
They next face third seed American duo Austin Krajicek and Jackson Withrow.
Last week, 44-year-old Paes, partnering James Cerretani, had won his 25th ATP doubles Challenger title at Newport Beach.
Ghosal becomes the highest-ranked Indian squash player
India's leading squash player, Saurav Ghosal jumped five places to No 14 to become the highest ranked Indian in the latest Professional Squash Association (PSA) rankings released on Friday.
Ghosal beat Joshna Chinappa, who slipped three places to No 17, while Dipika Pallikal Karthik remained on the 20th spot.
Former Indian national champion Harinder Pal Sandhu was placed in the top 50 (49th). Among other Indians, Mahesh Mangaonkar and Ramit Tandon, after rising 16 places, are in the 64th spot and Vikram Malhotra is on 68.
Sunayna Kuruvilla rose 15 spots to climb to the 89th position and be placed third in the women's section behind leaders Joshna and Dipika, while Sachika Ingale is on 96.
Abhijeet, Debashish finish in top-10 in Gibraltar
Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta ended in the ninth position, just head of compatriot Debashish Das, as for the first time two Indians finished in top-10 at the Super Open, in Gibraltar.
Top seed Levon Aronian of Armenia won the title defeating arch-rival Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the tie-breaker that ensued after a seven-way tie for the top spot on 7.5 points.
Three times winner Hikaru Nakamura of United States and Richard Rapport of Hungary were the other two in top four who were eliminated in the semi-final tiebreaker and Vachier-Lagrave found Aronian irresistible in the finals.
After the seven-way tie, David Howell from England finished ninth with his best performance rating among seven pointers.
Abhijeet Gupta, former world junior champion, settled for a draw with Duda Jan-Krzysztof of Poland in the 10th and final round while Debashish capped his brilliant performance with a win over higher-ranked Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda.
It is first time in 16-years history of this richest Open in the world when two Indians finished in top-10.
Gupta was awarded the highest prize among the players rated till 2650 and the Commonwealth champion, who briefly went out of the 2600 rating bracket heaved a sigh of relief after a few below-par performances recently.
