A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Tuesday
India's top men singles player Yuki Bhambri continued his fine show and defeated compatriot Sriram N Balaji in straight sets to make an emphatic start to his campaign at $ 100,000 Bengaluru Open in Bengaluru.
Yuki, who had won the Pune Challenger last week, lived upto his third seed billing and defeated Balaji 6-3, 6-2 in the relatively easy first round encounter.
Yuki had clinched his first title of 2017 on the ATP Challenger Tour after registering a come-from-behind win over compatriot Ramkumar Ramanathan in the final of the KPIT-MSLTA Challenger in Pune.
Yuki is currently ranked 122nd in the world after he had registered a win over Frenchman Gael Monfils and pushed Denis Shapovalov and Kevin Anderson to deciding sets in the Davis Cup and Citi Open respectively. He was ranked 474th at the start of the year.
But in a major setback for Indian fans, leading contender Saketh Myneni had to withdraw from the tournament owing to a nagging right shoulder injury. He has been replaced by lucky loser Antoine Escoffier.
Meanwhile, it was curtains for Indian wild card entrants Vishnu Vardhan and Suraj Prabodh as they lost their respective men's singles matches in straight sets to crash out in the opening round.
5 Indians in quarters of Youth Women's World Boxing
India enjoyed an all-win day at the AIBA Women's Youth World Boxing Championships with five of the country's pugilists advancing to the quarter-finals after contrasting victories in Guwahati on Monday.
The fast-rising Ankushita Boro (64kg) led the charge with a facile unanimous triumph over Turkey's Aluc Cagla. Boro is a silver-medallist from the Balkan Youth International Boxing Championship and the International Ahmet Comert Tournament.
Also advancing to the quarter-finals were Shashi Chopra(57kg), Jyoti Gulia (51kg), a Golden Glove Tournament gold-medallist, Neetu (48kg) and Sakshi Choudhary (54kg).
India are already assured of two medals in the event after Neha Yadav (+81kg) and Anupama (81kg) found themselves in the semi-finals due to small size of the draws.
Rutuja goes down to Israeli qualifier Deniz
An erratic Rutuja Bhosale, blowing hot and cold, went down in straight sets to higher ranked Israeli opponent and qualifier Deniz Khazaniuk in the singles first round of the $ 125,000 L & T Mumbai Open in Mumbai on Tuesday as the Indian challenge dwindled in the WTA event.
The India number 5, who has returned after playing collegiate tennis in USA, showed glimpses of what she is capable of, especially on her opponent's serve, but committed far too many unforced errors on her own serve to go down 4-6, 3-6 in 1 hour and 15 minutes at the Cricket Club of India centre court.
Rutuja, ranked 577 which is more than 200 rungs below her rival, rattled Deniz with her deep, attacking ground strokes with her forehand and some superb approach shots to the net followed by some effective volleying.
But the Indian girl, who got a wild card into the main draw, was unable to hold her own serve for the major part of the match, more due to her own inconsistent play in trying to go for the lines.
The exit of Rutuja, after the elimination of two other Indian wild cards Karman Kaur Thandi and Zeel Desai on Monday, has left only India no 1 Ankita Raina in the singles draw.
Ankita takes the court on Wednesday in her first round clash against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia.
The Indian challenge in the doubles too dwindled with the elimination of Prarthana Thombare and her partner Hiroko Kuwata of Japan. They went down in straight sets 2-6, 3-6 in the first round to the Israeli-Australian combine of Julia Glushko and Priscilla Hon.
The dwindling fortunes of the Indians were arrested later when Karman Kaur Thandi and her partner Pranjala Yadlapalli defeated Naiktha Bains of Australia and Fanny Stollar of Hungary 6-3, 7-5 to move into the doubles quarters.
Shardul grabs 4 gold in sensational show at Shotgun Nationals
The 14-year old Shardul Vihan of Uttar Pradesh produced a sensational performance as he won four gold on a single day in the 61st National Shooting Championship in New Delhi.
Shardul won gold in the senior and junior men's double trap individual and team events to completely dominate the day at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range here.
Coached by former Asian Championship double gold medallist Anwer Sultan, Shardul turned the tables on current world number one double trapper Ankur Mittal 78-76 in the men's final.
