Kukreja claims title; Jayswal in final

Jayswal had lost in the quarter-finals of the Open event to Gajendra Singh Rathore 2-9, 10-9, 7-9, 9-1, 9-4 last night. It wasn’t Junejas’ day today. Rohan’s sibling Gaurav was crushed by the top seed Ritwik Bhattacharya 9-0, 6-9, 9-0, 9-4.

RESULTS

Open semifinals: Akhil Behl bt Gajendra Singh Rathore 9-2, 9-1, 9-6; Paul Ferreira bt Dhiraj Singh 9-2, 9-6, 9-7.

Boys under-19 semifinals: Ritwik Bhattacharya bt Gaurav Juneja 9-0, 6-9, 9-0, 9-4; Awish Jayswal bt Rohan Juneja 3-9, 4-9, 9-0, 9-2, 9-6.

Boys under-16 final: Abhijit Kukreja bt Abhimanyu Jain 9-7 9-5, 9-0.

Boys under-14 semifinals: Siddharth Suchde bt Yashwardhan Singh 9-2, 9-0, 9-1; Sahil Vora bt Mihir Sheth 9-4, 9-4, 9-2.

Boys under-12 semifinals: Karanpal Seth bt Hrishikesh Pendse 9-1, 9-0, 9-0; Siddharth Samantary bt Rishabh Singhvi 6-9, 10-8 9-3, 9-7.

Women semifinals: Mekhla Subedar bt Deepali Anvekar 9-1, 9-3, 9-3; Swati Arora bt Rhea Bhandare 9-1, 5-9, 9-7, 9-1.

Girls under-19 semifinals: Deepali Anvekar bt Aisha Shah 9-0, 9-2 match conceded

Shetty shines

A skipper’s knock of 79, including five fours by Harish Shetty set Union Bank on the road to victory in the final against Dena Bank in the inaugural Inter-Bank invitational cricket tournament at Worli today.

Brief scores: Union Bank 212 for 8 in 45 overs (Harish Shetty 79, Sunil Chaturvedi 32) bt Dena Bank 159 all out in 39 overs (Tushar Parab 36, Nilesh Masurkar 36; Arun Shetty 4-20, Paresh Nakhwa 3-30) by 53 runs.

Man-of-the-series: Ajit Kolte (UBI);

Man-of-the-final: Harish Shetty (UBI).

Best batsman: Prashant Manjrekar (IDBI).

Best bowler: Sandeep Mahadkar (RBI).

Machhar lead

Sunil Machhar, Mumbai, were leading the table with 77 VP at the end of the fourth round in the Tolani National Masters bridge championship at Central Railway Auditorium.

Closely following the leader are ITC who stayed in the second spot with 76 VP.

Eskimos freeze Agnel

Vasai Eskimos defeated Father Agnel Balbhavan 3-0 (1-0) in a BHA Bombay Provincial championship hockey match at Mahindra stadium. Irfan Mohammad (23rd), Lawrence Paras (50th) and Murli (60th) scored for thw winners.

Other results: Rebels SC (Bandra) 5 (Carl Lopes, Warren Carvalho, Ashish Pande, Kirk Periera, Rohin Fernandes) bt Willingdon Catholic Gymkahan 2 (C Russel, Rupesh Halunde); Larsen and Toubro 5 (Aslam D’Silva, SS Alhuwalia, Ronald D’Souza, John Manjali, Oscar D’Souza) bt BPCL 0

Kashelikar ahead

Ramakrishna Kashelikar (ILO rating 2245), Dombivali, was ahead in the under-19 Rochess ’97 Open junior chess tournament. While playing on the first board, he used the Nimzo Indian defence against Sunil Khadilkar. Taking advantage of Sunil’s mistake, he secured victory in the end game after 31 moves.

In the under-14 section, seeded players Anup Kapadia (Aurangabad), Varun Diwekar (Pune) and Amar Kamat (Dombivali) shared the lead after two rounds.

Mumbai cops in final

Mumbai Police entered the final of the Invitation Cup cricket tournament when they beat Abhudaya Bank by 12 runs at the Azad Maidan.

Brief scores of semi-finals: Mumbai Police 147 for 8 in 20 overs (Raju Dhri 30, Vijay Yadav 37; Bak Karle 3-19) bt Abhudaya Bank 135 for 9 in 20 overs (Satish Churi 32; Deepak Patil 3-11).

Mahindra Tractors 85 in 19.4 overs (Aslam Shaikh 4-17) lost to Varun Shipping 86 for 2 in 14 overs.