Runners-up Gujarat women lose two matches at junior basketball nationals

Runners-up Gujarat lost their first two matches of Group B at the 76th Junior National Basketball Championship being played at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium in Puducherry. The tournament is being organised by Pondicherry Basketball Association and Basketball Federation of India (BFI). On Friday, Gujarat lost 55-62 to Rajasthan in their opening contest. Dinal Viththani led Gujarat with 17 points, while Vidhi Baria contributed 11 points. Ankita scored 19 points for Rajasthan, who were neck and neck with Gujarat till the second quarter before pulling away in the third quarter. On Saturday, Gujarat lost 69-85 to Uttar Pradesh in the second match. At the end of the third quarter, Uttar Pradesh led 59-56 before outscoring their opponents 26-10 in the last quarter to score an easy win. Neha, with 22 points, and Anshika Sharma, with 15 points, led the scoring charts for UP, while Gujarat were led by Dinal Viththani with 13 points and Nitya Agrawal with 10 points.

Vaidehee loses in doubles QF in ITF Korea meet: India’s rising tennis star Vaidehee Chaudhari had a disappointing outing at the ITF W$35,000 tournament in Changwon, South Korea. The Ahmedabad-born Vaidehee lost in the doubles quarter-final and in the first round of the singles to cap off a below-par performance on the ITF circuit. The 26-year-old Vaidehee, seeded fifth in the singles draw, lost 3-6, 4-6 to unseeded Japanese Reina Goto in the first round. In the doubles first round, the Ahmedabad-born Vaidehee and her American partner Amy Zhu won 6-1, 3-6, 10-4 against India’s Sravya Shivani Chilakalapudi and Russia’s Kseniya Yersh. The pair then suffered a 1-6, 1-6 loss to South Korea’s Heerae Im and Eunchae Kim.

USAI appoints Guj’s Sheetal Bhatt as competition dir for nationals: The Underwater Sports Association India (USAI) has appointed Gujarat’s Sheetal Bhatt as the competition director for the upcoming 9th National Finswimming Championship. The competition will be organised at Campal Swimming Pool, Panaji, from May 29-31. USAI is a member of the World Underwater Federation (CMAS).