AP, West Bengal boys have it easy

Delhi, who lost to West Bengal on the first day, played beautifully today and almost were nearing a major upset. Leading 29-22 at the half time, everyone thought that Delhi might keep their tempo in the second half, but holders AP came back through Kamal Kant, who scored consistently from all the angles. Comparitively, West Bengal had little difficulty in beating Chandigarh.

New entrants, Services played superbly to beat Karnataka in Group C match. Services might be dark horse in this championshp as they played at a very fast pace and attacked right from the start and then mounted pressure by applying full court man-to-man defence.

Karnataka were having height advantage but could not encash it as they were not able to control the speedy services. Sunil Kumar was the chief architect of Services’ victory.

Rajasthan, playing with only 7 players as their remaining players were disqualified by the medical panel for being `overage’ for the championship, beat MP 73-61 in late night match yesterday and again this morning beat Kerala 66-39 to enter the knock-out stage.

Tamil Nadu, who beat Kerala yesterday, however, lost to MP today.

Placings in Group D is wide open as last year’s semifinalists, Tamil Nadu will have to beat Rajasthan to keep their hopes of entering knock-out stage alive.

In the girls Group C match, UP beat AP 32-22 to enter the quarter-finals while Karnataka recorded their first victory beating Delhi 39-16. Karnataka girls will have to beat Manipur to enter the quarter-finals from this group.

Results (Boys-Group-A): Andhra Pradesh 69 (Kamal Kant 30, Ehal Yadav 9), beat Delhi 50 (Aditya Sharma 25, Suveer Sodhi 9). Half time: 22-29. West Bengal 49 (Satyendra Singh 16, S Bhattacharya 17) bt Chandigarh 41 (Manish Chaudhary 19, Vishal Kohli 11). HT 25-15. Group-C: Services 72 (Sunil Kumar 34, Shyamvir Singh 15) beat Karnataka 58 (BB Sachindra 19, Laxman Gasti 9). HT 38-26. Group-D: Rajasthan 73 (Navneet Chaudhary 21, Manish Yadav 7, Sanjay Yadav 11) beat Madhya Pradesh 61 (Dhanesh Kumar 25, Kamal Singh 11, T S Prakash Rao 10). HT 34-24. Madhya Pradesh 70 (T S Prakash Rao 29, Gaurav Sant 16) beat Tamil Nadu 51 (S N Shivprakash 15, B Navawesthan 9). HT: 32-21.

Girls (Group-C): Uttar Pradesh 47 (Prashanti Singh 20, Swarangeet Kaur 11) beat Kerala 39 (Mamta Shana 5). HT: 28-12. Andhra Pradesh 32 (Somlata 20) beat Haryana 28 (Sonia Verma 14). HT: 11-6. Uttar Pradesh 32 (Nisha Tripathi 12, Prashanti Singh 11) beat Andhra Pradesh 22 (K Adilaxmi 9). HT: 19-9. Group-D: Punjab 44 (Rajwinder Kaur 15, Gaganpreet Kaur12) beat Rajasthan 7. HT: 32-4. Group-A: Karnataka 39 (Asha Hegde 13, B Sharavati 9) beat Delhi 16 (Natasha Chada 8). HT: 24-10.