CHESS
Chess sensation Vantika Agrawal rises to India No. 3 rank
Rising Indian chess player Vantika Agrawal continues to take rapid strides in her career as she achieved a career-high rank of India No. 3 in the women’s section with a total of 2428 rating points.
The 21-year-old Vantika, who was part of the 2020 Olympiad-winning Indian team, has been impressive in her recent outings as she added 61 points from her last four international tournaments, which also includes becoming women’s champion at the Menorca Open in Spain.
“It’s an amazing feeling to become India No. 3. Honestly, I knew that I will do this but wasn’t expecting it to happen this quickly. I managed to increase rankings in the last four tournaments and get this spot,” the Noida resident Vantika expressed her joy.
“I will not stop here and keep working harder so that I can get the Grandmaster title and become India No. 1, that’s my aim. To achieve that, I will need to play more strong tournaments now,” she further added.
Women’s Grandmaster Vantika has been a consistent performer on the international circuit. She also became the 11th Indian woman to attain the International Master title last month.
Vantika will look to continue her brilliant show when she plays some top tournaments later in order to prepare for the 2022 Asian Games, to be played in Hangzhou. She is also confident of becoming Grandmaster this year as she requires three GM norms and crosses 2500 rating points to achieve that title.
-Team Sportstar
TENNIS
AITA women’s tournament- Sonal made to work hard in her win against Rachita
The champion of the last tournament, third seed Sonal Patil was stretched to three sets by fifth seed Rachita Talwar in the quarterfinals of the Rs.100,000 AITA women’s tennis tournament at the Joygaon Academy on Wednesday. Sonal won 6-3, 4-6, 6-2.
In the semifinals, Sonal will challenge the top seed Sahira Singh who eased past Shefali Arora for the loss of five games.
The other semifinal will be between Divya Bhardwaj and second seed Kashish Bhatia.
-Team Sportstar
Junior Billie Jean King Cup: India beats Mongolia
India outplayed Mongolia in the last league match, dropping only three games in all, but it was no consolation as the team had missed the chance to qualify for the quarterfinals in the Asia-Oceania Junior Billie Jean King Cup under-16 girls tennis tournament in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday.
In the match for the minor placings, India which had earlier lost to Chinese Taipei and Thailand, will play Vietnam on Thursday.
Chinese Taipei topped the group by beating Thailand in the last league match. Host Kazakhstan, Australia, Hong Kong, Uzbekistan, Korea and Japan were the other teams to make the quarterfinals, two each from the three other groups.
-Team Sportstar