Sports 65

PSV Eindhoven advanced to the Champions League’s third qualifying round after beating hosts Galatasaray 2-1 to win the second round tie 7-2 on aggregate.

Noni Madueke’s deflected shot eight minutes before half-time on Wednesday put PSV ahead on the night and captain Marco van Ginkel extended the lead from a Mario Gotze cross just before the hour-mark.

The visitors were reduced to ten men when Olivier Boscagli picked up a second yellow card for a foul on Mbaye Diagne in the 73rd minute.

Substitute Diagne then volleyed in an eye-catching goal 11 minutes later, but it was a mere consolation for Galatasaray.

PSV will face Danish side Midtjylland in the next round, while Galatasaray dropped into the third qualifying round of the Europa League, where they will meet St Johnstone of Scotland.

The fourth day of Tokyo Olympics 2020, which got underway on Monday, will see Manika Batra headline the Indian campaign at the Games. Manika Batra staged a comeback in her women’s singles second round match against world number 32 Margaryta Pesotka, losing in the first two games but bouncing back to win 4-11, 4-11, 11-7, 12-10, 8-11, 11-5, 11-7. The paddler will be up against Sofia Polcanova of Austria. Day Four will also see Sharath Kamal feature in the men’s singles second round. Moreover, Sutirtha Mukherjee will have her women’s singles second round game as well. Meanwhile, tennis prodigy Sumit Nagal will face Russian star Daniil Medvedev. Nagal became the third Indian tennis player to win a men’s singles match at the Olympics. The Indian men’s archery team will be hoping to put in a good display along with members of the shooting contingent on Day Four. The Indian women’s hockey team will face off against Germany in their Pool A match. The women lost to Netherlands in their campaign opener. Other than the aofrementioned events, Team India will also feature in fencing, sailing, badminton and boxing.

India pacer Deepak Chahar, who was an unexpected hero with the bat in the second ODI against Sri Lanka, on Tuesday said coach Rahul Dravid’s belief in his batting inspired him to produce a match-winning knock for his team. Chahar came ahead of the more accomplished Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the batting order after India lost their six wickets for 160 runs while chasing 276. In the end, they both forged an unbeaten 84-run stand to script a three-wicket win for India.

“No better way to win the match for the country. Rahul sir told me to play all the balls. I’ve played a few innings with India A (when Dravid was coach) and I think he has belief in me.

“He told me he thinks I’m good enough to be a No. 7 (but he batted at 8). He has belief in me. Hopefully in the coming matches I don’t have to bat. When we came under 50 that’s when I believed we can win. Before that it was ball by ball. I took some risks after,” said Chahar at the post match presentation.

Prior to this game, his highest scored in international cricket was 12.

It was hot out there, we did well there. Got two wickets. We managed to stop them at 270 (275 actually). It was a decent score on this wicket.

“Only one thing that was going on in my mind: this is the kind of innings I’ve been dreaming of. No better way to win the match for the country,” he said talking about his mindset in the middle.

India had romped to victory in the first ODI but it took a lot more effort on Tuesday.

Tail-ender Deepak Chahar brought India back from the dead with a steely 69 off 82 balls and script the visiting team’s series-sealing victory in the second ODI against Sri Lanka here on Tuesday.

Chasing 276, India were down and out at 193 for seven before Chahar and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (19 not out off 28) forged an unbeaten 84-run stand to seal a memorable win for the visitors who extended their record of not losing an ODI on Sri Lanka soil since 2012.

A struggling Sri Lankan outfit badly needed a morale-boosting win but has only itself to blame for not finishing the job from a commanding position.

Chahar, whose highest score before this game was 12, showed remarkable resolve and composure under pressure to take his team over the line with five balls to spare. He fittingly hit the winning boundary.

It was India’s ninth consecutive bilateral series win over Sri Lanka. The third ODI will be played on Friday.

It was expected to be another comfortable chase for India after Sri Lanka put an improved batting effort to post 275 for nine.

However, questionable shot selection from the majority of the Indian batsmen gave their struggling opponents hope.

Barring Chahar and Suryakumar Yadav (53), the Indian batsmen faltered. Leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga troubled the Indians with his variations and ended up being the stand out bowler for his team.

An unnamed athlete on Thursday tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving here for the Tokyo Olympics, beginning July 23.

The athlete, whose identity was not disclosed, has been placed into a 14-day quarantine.

According to the latest COVID-19 Positive Case List published on Olympics.com , five other persons — four contractors from Japan and an official (non-resident of Japan) designated as a “Games-connected personnel” — has also tested positive.

With the latest figures, the total no of COVID-19 positive cases in Tokyo Games have reached 26 since July 1.

England defender Harry Maguire said his father had injured ribs and trouble breathing after being caught up in the surge when hundreds of fans without tickets broke through security barriers to get into Wembley Stadium in a bid to watch Sunday’s European Championship final against Italy.

UEFA on Tuesday asked an investigator to study violence by England fans at the game.

The English Football Association has been separately charged with multiple offenses by fans before and during their team’s loss to Italy in a penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw.

Maguire told The Sun newspaper his father was “in the stampede“ and had been scared but didn’t seek medical treatment.

“I have seen a lot of videos and have spoken to dad and my family. It was my dad and agent who suffered the most,“ Maguire told the tabloid. “He was struggling with his breathing afterwards because of his ribs, but he’s not one to make a big fuss _ he got on with it.”

UEFA’s charges against England’s FA also relate to booing Italy’s national anthem, a fan who stopped play by running on the pitch, throwing objects, and lighting fireworks.

While those offenses typically result in fines, more serious punishment such as full or partial stadium closures can follow the kind of violence seen on Sunday.

The official attendance was around 67,000 of the stadium’s 90,000 capacity, with many seats intended to be left empty to distance fans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But there was extremely high demand for tickets for England’s first major tournament final in 55 years.

Fans could be seen standing in the stadium bowl unable to access their seats before the game and stadium officials confirmed “a small group of people got into the stadium” without tickets.

UEFA gave no timetable for the disciplinary cases.

The FA was fined 30,000 euros ($35,000) for fan incidents after the team’s semifinal at Wembley last week, including booing Denmark’s anthem.

No PV Sindhu medal is complete without matching wits with the Japanese, and the Tokyo Olympics stars have aligned to pit her against Akane Yamaguchi in a potential quarterfinal. Should seedings stick to script, World No 7 Sindhu would be up against the home contender in the Last 8.

The last time they met, Sindhu beat Yamaguchi – almost a foot shorter, but twice busier – in three sets at the All England. It was a significant result in what was the Indian’s best fighting match of 2021. Downing the un-tiring Yamaguchi who retrieves endlessly and can still sneak in the offensive punch in her back-bending smashes, Sindhu had secured the confidence-booster in the early season at Birmingham.

Like she has been accustomed to, throughout her successful sojourns at the Majors, the reward for downing Yamaguchi could be an even more treacherous opponent – the deceptive dazzler, Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei or the older talent-oozing Intanon Ratchanok.

Sindhu’s half is littered with shuttlers searching for their own big medals – with the Indian having played a part in denying them glory in past competitions. Tai Tzu alone was hassled out of the Rio Olympics and knocked out of the 2019 World Championships by Sindhu. As such, Sindhu will run into dangerously unfulfilled ambitions of shuttlers for whom Tokyo will be the last-chance saloon.

The other half of the draw has Chinese Chen Yufei, He Bingjiao, Korean An Se Young and gold-favourite Nozomi Okuhara.

Beware of the start

A gold medal, by definition, demands you prove your might against anyone else in the draw – and Sindhu has a couple of tricky potential hurdles even before she squares off against Yamaguchi (possibly) in the quarters. The Indian is clubbed in Group J with Hong Kong’s Cheung Ngan Yi, whose acrobatic defense and deception from the back, cannot be easily ignored.

Denmark’s Mia Blichfeldt was easily set aside earlier in March but can be particularly pugnacious. This Round of 16 opponent should keep her on her toes.

Great wall of Momota

B Sai Praneeth needed to avoid Viktor Axelsen and top-ranked Kento Momota of Japan early. The draw has been nastily unkind. Should he get past dangerous floaters Misha Zilberman and Mark Caljouw from Group D, Sai has NG Long ka Angus of Hong Kong, a hectic opponent who fancies his chances against Indians.

Momota’s nerves while trying to win Japan it’s first-ever gold in the home Games can be exploited. Whether Sai Praneeth can summon the belief needed to pierce through the most indestructible defense aiming at gold in Tokyo, remains to be seen.

At the 2019 World’s where Sai won India’s first men’s singles bronze in 26 years, he was beaten 21-13, 21-8 by Momota. Two months later, things got even more dire with a 21-6 scoreline at Denmark. But no one said Olympic medals came easy.

Rough draw for Satwik-Chirag

India’s men’s doubles pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have a punishing group-stage to negotiate. It’s Sanhok-level of difficulty, for the PUBG lovers.

As if being bunched with World No 1 Kevin Sukamuljo – Marcus Gideon – the busybody ‘Minions’ of Indonesia wasn’t enough, there is Lee Yang – Wang Chi Lin of Chinese Taipei, who set the Thailand tournaments on fire in January, throbbing to win in the same A Group.

British Ben Lane – Sean Vendy, picked ahead of their higher ranked compatriots – who won bronze at Rio and are in the middle of a spat of a selection blowout right now, will have a point to prove too.

Expected to be the surprise package of the Olympics for the country chasing its third successive Games medal, the Indians have a nasty, chaotic surprise of their own, to get off the mark. Satwik loves to smash his way out of these minefields typically rather than grind out. The Olympic draw though, might leave him with no choice now but to dial up the aggression.