Teen shuttler Unnati Hooda shone brightly as India eked out a 3-2 win over Australia in their third Group B match of the mixed team event of BWF World Junior Championships on Tuesday.
Hooda, the 15-year-old from Haryana, kept India afloat in the tie after men’s doubles pair of Arsh Mohammad and Abhinav Thakur lost the opening match. Women’s pair of Isharani Baruah and Devika Sihag, and mixed doubles combination of Vignesh Thathineni and Srinidhi Narayanan then claimed victories in the last two matches as India emerged winners.
Earlier, Arsh and Abhinav failed to get across Ricky Tang and Otto Xing De Zhao, going down 12-21 17-21 to hand over the advantage to Australia.
Unnati, Odisha Open champion, dished out a clinical performance to outclass Sydney Go 21-6 21-9 to bring India back in the contest.
In the men’s singles match, Bharat Raghav’s fight ended with a narrow 19-21 21-16 15-21 loss to Jack Yu as Australia lead 2-1.
Isharani and Devika then took centrestage and defeated Australia’s Dania Nugroho and Catrina Chia-Yu Tan 21-8 21-8 to make it 2-2.
Vignesh and Srinidhi then provided the finishing touch with a 21-12 21-16 win over Otto Xing De Zhao and Yuelin Zhang to take India home.
India had defeated Iceland 5-0, before suffering a 0-5 loss to China. The fifth seeds will take on Slovenia in their final Group B match.
India had signed off at the 12th place in the last edition in 2019. The country’s best result was a fourth-place finish in the 2008 edition.
India are currently placed behind China in the second position in their group. Only the team finishing at the top will qualify for the quarterfinals, while the second-placed teams will compete for places 9-16.
The team finishing third will play for positions 17-24, while fourth-placed sides will compete for 25-32 positions and fifth-placed teams for 33-38 spots.
India had lost to China 0-5 in its second group match on Tuesday.
-PTI
GOLF
Aditi Ashok to participate in Women’s Indian Open starting Oct 20
Aditi Ashok will be one of the top Indian golfers who will be in seen in action in the Hero Women’s Indian Open which gets underway at the DLF Golf and Country Club from Thursday.
The 24-year-old from Bengaluru became the first woman from the country to win on the Ladies European Tour (LET) by clinching the Women’s Indian Open in 2016.
She progressed quickly from there, adding two more LET wins in 2016 and 2017 and earning a card on the toughest Tour in the world, the LPGA in the United States.
In 57 starts on the LET, Aditi has had three wins and 18 top-10s. Last year at the Tokyo Olympics, she came agonisingly close to getting onto the podium by finishing fourth.
Aditi, who made her debut in this tournament in 2011, turned in superb performances between 2011 and 2015 in her five appearances as an amateur. She made the cut four times, finished in top-10 once, twice in top-15 and missed the cut only once.
In fact, Aditi had won a pro event on the domestic Women’s Golf Tour while still being an amateur. She turned pro in 2016 and lifted the silverware that year itself.
-PTI