Inbrief

Anjali Ved Pathak and Suma Dixit missed the gold by one point in sport rifle 3 position. They shot 1125/1200, conceding the top position to England. Kuheli Gangulee won gold in badge shooting with an individual score of 561 out of 600.

Kanetkar in Spanish Open quarter-final
Bangalore: India No 2 Nikhil Kanetkar has entered thequarter-finals of THE Spanish International Badminton Championship at Seville.

Kanetkar, who reached the semis of the Toulouse Open last week, defeated French No 4 Jean-Frederic Massias in the first round 15-4 15-6 and outplayed Rehan Khan of Germany in the pre-quarterfinals 15-5 15-5, a Badminton Association of India release said.

Siddarth Jain and Kiran Kumar lost in the second qualifying round and prequarter-finals respectively. Jain lost to Indonesian Salim 13-15 5-15. Kumar beat the German No 4 13-15, 15-10, 15-4 in the first round, before losing to Tjitte Weistra of The Netherlands 15-13, 15-13.

Aarthie, Saheli Dhar maintain lead
Sangli: FIDE Women Master Saheli Dhar-Barua Rlys and World under-18 champion Aarthie Ramaswami of Tamil Nadu continued to lead with 6.5 points at the end of the eighth and penultimate round of the 26th Godrej National Women B8217; Chess Championship today.

Results 8th round: S Meenakshi 6 drew Saheli Dhar-Barua 6.5, Aarthie Ramaswami 6.5 drew PallaviShah 6, Neha Singh 6 bt Mrunalini Kunte 5, Nisha Mohota 5 lost to S Sujatha 6, Baisakhi Das 5.5 drew Kiran Agarwal 5.5, CV Rajalakshmi 4.5 lost to Anupama Gokhale 5.5, Y Pratibha 5.5 bt Dolan Champa Bose 4.5, E Sheena 5 bt Ashwini Kulkarni 4, JE Kavitha 4 lost to Bindu K Saritha 5, Zeel Mehta 4 lost to Swati Mohota 5, TT Laxmi Priya 5 bt SR Radha 4, H Isai Amudhu 4 lost to Pushpalatha Mangal 5, Purabi Sinha 4.5 drew C Delphin 4.5, Saheli Nath 5 bt Ch Kavitha 4.

Senior National TT shifted to Lucknow
Vijayawada: The Senior National table tennis tournament for men and WOMEN, scheduled from January 5-12 at Cuttack, has been shifted to Lucknow due to the devastation caused by the cyclone.

West Bengal launch campaign in style
Chandigarh: Defending champions West Bengal began their title hunt in THE team championships in style in both the boys and girls category, on the opening day of the 61st Junior National and Inter-State table tennischampionships. Bengal boys blanked Meghalaya and UP 3-0 in the first and second rounds respectively. The girls defeated Goa 3-0.

Other results Boys: Maharashtra B bt MP 3-1, PSCB A bt Mizoram 3-0, Tamil Nadu bt Rajasthan 3-0, Maharashtra A bt Chandigarh 3-0 Girls: Maharashtra B bt HP 3-0 , Tamil Nadu bt UP 3-0, Maharashtra A bt Rajasthan 3-0 State spikers8217; stunning foray into final CHANDRAPUR: Maharashtra girls stunned defending champions Bengal to enter the final of the 22nd National Sub-junior volleyball championship today. The hosts won 25-17, 25-23, 25-20.

In the boys section, defending champions UP will meet Punjab. UP defeated Andhra Pradesh, Punjab beat Karnataka in the semi-finals.

Isha Lakhani, Rohan Gajjar win titles
Pune: Top seed Isha Lakhani of Mumbai prevailed over sixth seed Kartiki Bhatt of Pune in a marathon three sets 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 to bag the girls under-14 title in the National junior-ranking tennis championship today.

Rohan Gajjar Mum and Chatvinder Singh TNbeat Vikrant Sane to win the boys U-16 and U-14 titles respectively. In the girls U-16 final, Samrita Shekar TN bt Isha Lakhani 2-6 6-3 6-3.
Other results: State ranking Boys u-12: Keshavan Narsimhan bt Krishank Shah 6-3, 7-5. Girls u-12: Kartiki Bhatt Pune bt Kanisha Mehta 6-0, 6-0.

Davenport, Tauziat storm into semis
New York: Lindsay Davenport and Nathalie Tauziat completed the Semi-final line-up for the season-ending Chase Championships at Madison Square Garden. Davenport defeated Anke Huber of Germany 6-3 6-1 before sixth seed Tauziat stopped Dominique Van Roost of Belgium 6-3 6-2 on Friday night.

The other semi-final will pit defending champion Martina Hingis against No 3 Venus Williams.

Woods gives US seven-point lead
Kuala Lumpur: Tiger Woods capped an eight-under par round with an eagle ON the 17th today, tying the course record of 63 and helping lift the United States to a seven-shot lead after three rounds in Golf8217;s World Cup.

The Americans hadstarted the day trailing Spain by one shot, and the Spaniards expanded their lead to three over in today8217;s first three holes before Woods and partner Mark O8217;Meara began turning things around.