Chess News

At The 3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015, Saint Louis, USA

Round 8 - 31.08.2015
Alexander Grischuk (RUS,2771) - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA,2731) ½-½
Anish Giri (NED,2793) - Fabiano Caruana (ITA,2808) ½-½
Wesley So (USA,2779) - Veselin Topalov (BUL,2816) ½-½
Levon Aronian (ARM,2765) - Viswanathan Anand (IND,2816) ½-½
Magnus Carlsen (NOR,2876) - Hikaru Nakamura (USA,2814) ½-½

All five games are ended in a draw ... But in that Carlsen missed winning opportunity against Nakamura and agreed draw after long 95 moves.

Tennis News

At US Open 2015, New York

Doubles
[R1] (1) Sania Mirza (IND)/ Martina Hingis (SUI) vs (WC) Kaitlyn Christian (USA)/ Sabrina Santamaria (USA)
[R1] Fernando Verdasco (ESP)/ Leander Paes (IND) vs Florian Mayer (GER)/ Frank Moser (GER)
[R1] (6) Rohan Bopanna (IND)/ Florin Meargea (ROM) vs Austin Krajicek (USA)/ Nicholas Monroe (USA)

Doubles draw is out ... Lee-Verdasco r facing German pair in the first round and if they win this then they can face Bryans in the second ... Rohan-Florin r in bottom draw and facing American pair.

Sania-Martina r facing American wild-card pair.

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At $50K Bangkok Challenger, Thailand

[R1] (2) Somdev Devvarman (IND,152) bt (WC) Puriwat Chatpatcharoen (THA,882) 64 62

Expected winning start for Buji against lowly ranked Thai opponent.

Chess News

At The 3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015, Saint Louis, USA

Round 7 - 30.08.2015
Magnus Carlsen (NOR,2876) - Alexander Grischuk (RUS,2771) 0-1
Hikaru Nakamura (USA,2814) - Levon Aronian (ARM,2765) 0-1
Viswanathan Anand (IND,2816) - Wesley So (USA,2779) ½-½
Veselin Topalov (BUL,2816) - Anish Giri (NED,2793) ½-½
Fabiano Caruana (ITA,2808) - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA,2731) ½-½

Anand manages another draw with So playing with white ... His early mistakes kept him from controlling the game ... But day's upset score by Grischuk and sole leader Aronian, who defeated Carlsen and Nakamura respectively playing with blacks ... Aronian took advantage of mistakes by Nakamura but other hand Grischuk troubled Carlsen with his end game and Carlsen made blunder to resign after 68 moves.

Athletics News

At 15th IAAF World Championships, Beijing, China

Women's Marathon
18. O. P. Jaisha (IND) 2:34:43 NR
19. Sudha Singh (IND) 2:35:35 PB

In Women's marathon, O. P. Jaisha finishes creditable 18th place with new national record of 2:34:43 bettering her own record of 2:37:29 ... Sudha Singh also timed her personal best of 2:35:35 for creditable 19th place ... With this timing Sudha Singh also qualify for 2016 Rio Olympics, her timing was well below qualifying mark of 2:42:00, O. P. Jaisha already qualified for Rio Olympics.

Tennis News

At $50K Bangkok Challenger, Thailand

[Q2] Divij Sharan (IND,878) l (6) Ricardo Ghedin (ITA,491) 57 26

Doubles
[R1] James Cluskey (IRL)/ Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) vs Dane Propoggia (AUS)/ Jordan Thompson (AUS)
[R1] (3) N. Sriram Balaji (IND)/ Divij Sharan (IND) vs Cheng-Peng Hsieh (TPE)/ Andrew Whittington (AUS)
[R1] Somdev Devvarman (IND)/ Jimmy Wang (TPE) vs Yan Bai (CHN)/ Riccardo Ghedin (ITA)

Give fighting performance in his loss by Divij.

Our three pairs r in the doubles ... Interesting to watch Bala-Divij performance as a pair.

Chess News

At The 3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015, Saint Louis, USA

Round 6 - 29.08.2015
Alexander Grischuk (RUS,2771) - Fabiano Caruana (ITA,2808) 1-0
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA,2731) - Veselin Topalov (BUL,2816) 1-0
Anish Giri (NED,2793) - Viswanathan Anand (IND,2816) ½-½
Wesley So (USA,2779) - Hikaru Nakamura (USA,2814) 0-1
Levon Aronian (ARM,2765) - Magnus Carlsen (NOR,2876) ½-½

In sixth round total three decisive games but for Anand another draw, this time against Anish Giri ... Anand played solid Slav defense to hold Anish after 32 moves ... Maxime surprised Topalov with his perfect Berlin endgame ... Nakamura played excellent game with black to beat So ... Grischuk took advantage of mistake by Caruana for superb victory.

Hockey News

At 2016 Rio Olympics,

Congratulations to Indian Women Team on officially making it to Rio Olympics 2016, so after 36 years our women will be part of Olympics ... Netherlands and England women teams are entered into the final of European championship ... Both teams are already qualified for Rio Olympics so available European champion place our women team qualify as they were the best ranked team in Women's Hockey World League after qualified teams.

Tennis News

At $50K Bangkok Challenger, Thailand

[Q1] Divij Sharan (IND,878) bt Jirat Navasirisomboon (THA,1108) 63 76(3)

[Q2] Divij Sharan (IND,878) vs (6) Ricardo Ghedin (ITA,491)

[R1] N. Sriram Balaji (IND,427) vs Nicolas Meister (USA,378)
[R1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,226) vs Ze Zhang (CHN,217)
[R1] (2) Somdev Devvarman (IND,152) vs (WC) Puriwat Chatpatcharoen (THA,882)

Good draw for our players ... RamK is facing top Chinese player Ze Zhang.

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At $10K India F11 Futures , Chennai

Singles Final
Sumit NAGAL (IND) bt Ronit Singh BISHT (IND) 63 64

[SF] Sumit NAGAL (IND) bt (6) Ranjeet VIRALI-MURUGESAN (IND) 63 61
[QF] Sumit NAGAL (IND) bt (2) N.Sriram BALAJI (IND) 36 63 64
[R2] Sumit NAGAL (IND) bt (8) Vinayak Sharma KAZA (IND) 62 62
[R1] Sumit NAGAL (IND) bt Timur KHABIBULIN (KAZ) 62 61

Doubles Final
(1) Jeevan NEDUNCHEZHIYAN (IND)/ N. Vijay Sundar PRASHANTH (IND) bt (2) Mohit Mayur JAYAPRAKASH (IND)/ Vinayak Sharma KAZA (IND) 64 76(5)

In young players final between 18 year old Sumit Nagal and 19 year old Ronit Bisht, Sumit lifts his second futures title ... In this futures Sumit gave dominated performance, his only tough match was against 2nd seed Balaji which went to 3 sets.

Athletics News

At 15th IAAF World Championships, Beijing, China

Men's Discuss Throw
9. Vikas Gowda (IND) 62.24m

Poor throw from Vikas Gowda in the final of the Men's Discuss Throw ... He was out of the final after first 3 throws.

In Men's 50km walk, Sandeep Kumar finishes at 26th place with his season best timing of 3:57:03 while Manish Singh finishes at 27th place with his personal best timing of 3:57:11 ... Their timing is below 2016 Rio Olympics qualifying mark of 4:03:00, so two more quota places are earned by our athletes for Rio Olympics.

Our women 4x400m relay team posted a season best 3:29:08s but finished lowly 14th out of the 16 teams.

Chess News

At The 3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015, Saint Louis, USA

Round 5 - 27.08.2015
Levon Aronian (ARM,2765) - Alexander Grischuk (RUS,2771) ½-½
Magnus Carlsen (NOR,2876) - Wesley So (USA,2779) 1-0
Hikaru Nakamura (USA,2814) - Anish Giri (NED,2793) ½-½
Viswanathan Anand (IND,2816) - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA,2731) ½-½
Veselin Topalov (BUL,2816) - Fabiano Caruana (ITA,2808) 0-1

Another draw for Anand, this time against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave playing with white ... Anand had an advantage against Maxime but in end forced to draw ... In shocking result Caruana upset Topalov playing with black ... So Carlsen joins Aronian in the top with win over So.

Tennis News

At US Open 2015, New York

[Q2] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,226) l (30) Facundo Bagnis (ARG,137) 36 62 67(4)

RamK gives fighting performance in his loss against top-140 Argentine Facundo Bagnis ... After losing the first set RamK made strong comeback and won the second set with double break ... In the decider both players were holding their service games though RamK hold in 9th game after multiple deuce ... In tie-break RamK started well with mini-break he was up 4-1 but from here Bagnis won next six points in a row in that he won 2 points on RamK's serve for completing the victory ... As per stat RamK was better that Bagnis in all stats expect win % on 1st serve ... That means Bagnis return game was better that RamK and he played important points well ... RamK needs to learn from these experience but overall above expectation performance by RamK.

2015 Athletics

At 15th IAAF World Championships, Beijing, China

Vikas Gowda qualify for the finals of the Men's Discuss Throw in 7th position ... He qualified with 63.86m throw ... Frankly below par performance as I m hoping for 65m throw from him.

Chess News

At The 3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015, Saint Louis, USA

Round 4 - 26.08.2015
Alexander Grischuk (RUS,2771) - Veselin Topalov (BUL,2798) ½-½
Fabiano Caruana (ITA,2808) - Viswanathan Anand (IND,2816) ½-½
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA,2731) - Hikaru Nakamura (USA,2814) ½-½
Anish Giri (NED,2793) - Magnus Carlsen (NOR,2876) ½-½
Wesley So (USA,2779) - Levon Aronian (ARM,2765) 0-1

Another draw for Anand ... In an Anti-Meran Gambit game where Anand seemed to be doing well but he was concerned with inaccuracies creeping into his game again, so he decided to avoid the risk ... Only Aronian score win with a black against So and joins leader Topalov in the top position.

Tennis News

At US Open 2015, New York

[Q1] Yuki Bhambri (IND,144) l (23) Yoshihito Nishioka (JPN,127) 46 61 26
[Q1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,226) bt (PR) Pedro Sousa (POR,768) 62 63

[Q2] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,226) vs Facundo Bagnis (ARG,137)

Yuki struggled against no-nonsense game from Nishioka ... In the first set both players hold their respective service games till 8th game though Yuki was struggling ... In 9th game Nishioka broke Yuki and in 10th game Yuki had couple of break points opportunity but he failed to convert ... In the second set Yuki started well as he broke Nishioka in 2nd game to lead 3-0 ... Yuki again broke him in 6th game and then hold for winning this set comfortably ... In the third set Nishioka broke Yuki in 2nd game to lead 3-0 ... Nishioka again broke Yuki when he was serving for staying in the match in 8th game ... Very disappointing performance by Yuki and Buji in US qualifying.

At last RamK gives a win for us against weakest player in the draw still in end win is a win ... Moreover this is RamK's first win in the grand slam ... RamK won the first set comfortably with double service break ... In the second set he was up with a break at 4-2 when Pedro broke his serve, 4-3 ... RamK immediately broke Pedro in 8th game and then hold his serve for completing his victory ... Next he is facing top-140 Argentine Facundo Bagnis.

Athletics News

At 15th IAAF World Championships, Beijing, China

Women's 3000m Steeplechase
8 Lalita Babar (IND) 9.29.64

Lalita Babar finishes creditable 8th place in the final ... Almost till 2000m she was leading but couldn't continue in the end ... But really good experience for Lalita on this big stage which is good for her development.

Tintu Luka runs her season best timing of 2.00.95 sec in Women's 800m, but that was way down for qualifying for semi-final but still with this timing she qualify for 2016 Rio Olympics.

Chess News

At The 3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015, Saint Louis, USA

Round 3 - 25.08.2015
Wesley So (USA,2779) - Alexander Grischuk (RUS,2771) 1-0
Levon Aronian (ARM,2765) - Anish Giri (NED,2793) ½-½
Magnus Carlsen (NOR,2876) - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA,2731) 1-0
Hikaru Nakamura (USA,2814) - Fabiano Caruana (ITA,2808) ½-½
Viswanathan Anand (IND,2816) - Veselin Topalov (BUL,2798) ½-½

At last Anand manage to open his account at Sinquefield Cup ... Anand hold in-form Topalov with white in a Sicilian opening ... They agreed truce after 31 moves.

Tennis News

At US Open 2015, New York

[Q1] Somdev Devvarman (IND,152) l (20) Norbert Gambos (SVK,124) 75 57 16
[Q1] Saketh Myneni (IND,199) l (13) Jan-Lenard Struff (GER,111) 64 46 16
[Q1] Yuki Bhambri (IND,144) vs (23) Yoshihito Nishioka (JPN,127)
[Q1] Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND,226) vs (PR) Pedro Sousa (POR,768)

Good to see Yuki,Buji and Saki r playing against seeded opponents in their first qualifying matches ... Frankly if they want to qualify then they have to win these matches ... In three matches Yuki and Buji having chance against their opponents with their US hard court experience but Saki having really tough match against former top-40 German opponent.

Somi again hit by his regular three sets loss syndrome against Norbert ... In the first set Somi was struggling with his serve but his returning game was quite well ... He broke Norbert in 3rd game to lead 3-1 but Norbert broke Buji in 6th game to make it 3-all ... Buji again broke Norbert in 7th game but again failed to hold his serve in next game, 4-all ... Buji saved 3 set points on his serve in 10th game from 0-40 ... Then he broke Norbert in 11th game before holding to win the first set ... The second set started badly as Norbert broke Buji in 2nd game to lead 3-0 but Buji broke back in 5th game to make it 3-all ... After that Buji missed 4 break points in 7th game and 2 more in 9th game ... Norbert took advantage of it and broke Buji in 12th game for winning this set ... In the final set one way traffic for Norbert as he broke Buji in 2nd and 4th games to lead 4-0 ... Buji broke back in 5th game but Norbert again broke Buji in 6th game before holding his serve while serving for the match ... Buji failed to hold his serve single time in final set ... So disappointing to see Buji again messed up after having chance of finishing match in his favor in two sets.

Saki started positively and was serving well ... He broke Struff in 3rd game to take early lead 3-1 ... Saki kept that lead for winning the first set ... The second set also started in favor of Saki as he broke Struff 1st and 3rd game to lead 3-0 ... And from here everything changed, as Struff made remarkable comeback he broke Saki in 4th game to make it, 1-3 ... From 2-4 down Struff won next four games breaking Saki in 8th and 10th games for winning this set ... In the final set also from 1-all Struff showed dominance and won next five games for completing solid victory ... Big learning curve for Saki from this match.

Chess News

At The 3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015, Saint Louis, USA

Round 2 - 24.08.2015
Veselin Topalov (BUL,2798) - Hikaru Nakamura (USA,2814) 1-0
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA,2731) - Levon Aronian (ARM,2765) ½-½
Anish Giri (NED,2793) - Wesley So (USA,2779) ½-½
Fabiano Caruana (ITA,2808) - Magnus Carlsen (NOR,2876) 0-1
Alexander Grischuk (RUS,2771) - Viswanathan Anand (IND,2816) 1-0

Terrible start for Anand in this Sinquefield Cup ... He loses his second match in two rounds, this time against Grischuk with black ... Grischuk scored his first win against Anand in 12 years of classical chess with London system (1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4) ... Caruana had advantage against Carlsen but lost match in time trap ... Topalov continued with his terrific form and scored another convincing win over Nakamura to lead after two rounds.

Athletics News

At 15th IAAF World Championships, Beijing, China

Lalita Babar become the first Indian athlete ever to qualify for the final of a track and field event in the World Championships ... In the 3000m steeplechase event Lalita clocked a national record of 9:27.86s, 7+ secs better than previous record ... She finished 4th in her heat and overall 8th in three heats to qualify for the final.

Chess News

At The 3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015, Saint Louis, USA

Round 1 - 23.08.2015
Anish Giri (NED,2793) - Alexander Grischuk (RUS,2771) 1-0
Wesley So (USA,2779) - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA,2731) 0-1
Levon Aronian (ARM,2765) - Fabiano Caruana (ITA,2808) 1-0
Magnus Carlsen (NOR,2876) - Veselin Topalov (BUL,2798) 0-1
Hikaru Nakamura (USA,2814) - Viswanathan Anand (IND,2816) 1-0

Undoubtedly best start to the 2015 Sinquefield Cup ... Matches full of brilliance, attacks and some confusing moves ... Five decisive games.

Nakamura and Anand were almost even as Anand was defending well but he made a poor move 35...f5 ... After that Anand lose his match in next 8 moves ... Topalov surprised Carlsen by the move 7...g5 in the Sicilian and kept pressure on Carlsen who resigned under time pressure after 40 moves.