Bhojwani stuns Desai in semis

Keshavan Narsimhan beat V Vishnu 6-4, 6-1 to claim the boys under-10 singles crown while Sania Mirza beat Krushmi Chadda for the girls under-12 singles title.

Other results (semi-finals): Boys u-16: Kunal Bhojvani bt Zubin Shetty 6-2, 6-2, Aditya Shah bt Aashay Deshmukh 6-1, 7-5.

Boys u-12 : Karan Rastogi bt Krishna Tanna 6-3, 6-2, Sujay Mahadevan bt Rishi Behl 6-4, 6-3.

Girls u-14: Megha Vakharia bt Johan Fernandes 6-1, 6-3, Lata Asudani bt Medini Sharma 6-1, 6-2.

Central cruise

Central Railway coasted to a 90-49 victory over Central YMCA to book a berth in the men’s final of the Bombay YMCA Open basketball championships.The winners who led 41-26 at the breather now await the winners of the other semi-final between Bombay YMCA and Chembur YMCA in tomorrow’s final.

The railwaymen missed rebounds aplenty at the outset but steadied themselves mainly because of the efforts of Shahzad Shaikh, Shaji Mathews and Hamid Ansari. Before long Central Railway built an imposing lead.

Central YMCA fared disastrously off the boards in both defence and offence and most of their tries went off the mark.

Furthemore, close marking and zonal defence thwarted YMCA’s forays and the railwaymen often punished them with quick breaks.

YMCA’s Bob Keeler had a below par percentage of conversion while top scorer Donald D’Sa fared a little better as he drove for lay-ups.

Result: Central Railway 90 (Shahzad Shaikh 19, Fazil Shaikh 12, Shaji Mathews 10, Jitender Mane 10) bt Central YMCA 49 (Donald D’Sa 21, Bob Keeler 17).

Savio basketball

The fifth Savio Invitation basketball tournament for men will be held from May 25 to 30 under floodlights at the Don Bosco High School court.

The state’s top eight teams will participate in the event with prize money going to the finalists.

The best player of the tournament will merit the Pepsi Award with a player of the match award at every encounter.

The eight participating sides have been divided into two pools. They are: Pool A: Central Railway (Mumbai), Chembur YMCA, BEG (Kirkee), Bombay YMCA. Pool B: Shivaji Nagar Gymkhana (Nagpur), Indian Navy, Income-Tax, Central YMCA.

The top two sides from each round-robin league group qualify for the semifinals.

Maitra football

The JC Maitra football tournament will commence from May 28 at St Xavier’s Ground, Parel.

Senior, First and Second Division teams are eligible to participate. Entries close on May 26.

The MDFA leagues kick-off on June 15. All teams and managers are requested to collect registration forms and hand over the same to Tony Rodrigues, assistant secretary or to Baban Gaikwad by June 10 along with two photocopies for I-Cards from 5.00 p.m. to 7.00 p.m.

Neeta stuns Mehta

Neeta Sanghvi provided women’s snooker a fillip with a victory over seasoned Srikant Mehta in a four-hour struggle in the CCI Open tournament, today.

Neeta could have clinched it 3-0 but spurned chances. She trailed 1-2, went behind 18 points on the brown before levelling 2-2.

Exploiting several errors by Mehta, Neeta comfortably clinched the fifth en route to victory. The scoreline — 53-63, 69-42, 45-52, 75-71, 67-27.

State junior No 1, Manav Panchal overcame a minor hiccup of a first-frame loss before bouncing back to win 3-1. Panchal won with a 52 break in the second frame on his way to winning 52-71, 77-12, 75-16, 62-24.

Other results: Rehan Shaikh bt D Sharma 3-1 (48-32, 3-62, 58-18, 68-20); Rahul Bagga (Pune) bt Kunal Choksi 3-2 (61-44, 85-5, 45-48, 45-65, 84-25); S Jhaveri bt D Lamba (Pune) 3-0 (62-22, 58-17, 60-7); HS Nagi bt MD Gadgil (Pune) 3-1 38-63, 87-39, 60-44, 92-15); V Jagtiani bt A Barve (Pune) 3-1 (78-32, 70-35, 41-47, 71-22).

Lynette strikes

Carmel of St Joseph’s (Malad) beat Mary Immaculate 2-0 with goals by Lynette Murray in the Sub-Junior girls (under-14) hockey league being played at the St Andrew’s High School Ground, Bandra, today.

St Joseph’s (Vikhroli) and Conossa Convent drew goalless in another match of the five-team league.

Golf equipment

The Bangkok-based Jogani Group of Companies have something for the golf enthusiasts in the country to cheer about. An off-shoot of the group — Swing Golf Co Private Limited — would be launching international quality golf equipment, in the process becoming the first indigenous unit to do so.Under the brand name, Swing, the company offers a full range of accessories from golf balls, bags, wood covers besides the golf set that includes three woods and nine irons.

The golf set is priced at Rs 31,000 while the golf bags can be obtained within the price range of Rs 4,800 and Rs 9,000, inclusive of local taxes, informed Atul Jogani, chairman, Jogani Group while addressing ewsmen this afternoon. He also heads the Almac International Co Ltd, another limb of the group, that specialises in the design, supply and construction of international standard sports and recreation facilities.

The equipment manufactured in Thailand is expected to hit the Indian market by mid-July, later this year, disclosed Jogani.

Companeroes in QFs

Companeroes upstaged Father Agnel, Vashi 3-2 in a penatly shootout to enter the quarterfinals of the Western India Football Association (WIFA) Division I Turnament at the Cooperage today.

Both sides were locked goalless at regulation time.Savio Fernandes, Julius Moraes, Sheldon Fernandes were the scorers for the winners while only Malay Das and Prasenjit Sutradhar could find the target for Fr Agnel.