Suresh Raina latest rocking photos
Humpy ready to play Women’s World Blitz Chess Championship
World No.2 and India’s top rated Woman Grandmaster Koneru Humpy is ready with the gambit as she makes her maiden attempt at the Women’s World Blitz Chess Championship to be held in Moscow on September 17 and 18.
Humpy, who qualified by virtue of her rating, is India’s lone hope at the prestigious event.
“This is the first time I will be playing this tournament and I am excited at the prospect,” Humpy told this paper from Vijayawada.
“The format of the tournament is different. It will be played in a double round-robin format where I get to experiment with both black and white. Each game last for about 7-8 minutes and we have to play 15 games a day,” Humpy explained.
“There will be a total of 16 participants — the top six rated players apart from the top four players of the World Championships and six qualifiers,” added Humpy, who has an ELO rating of 2593.
“This format is a true test of how one manages time and presence of mind,” said Humpy.
“I am looking forward to playing the tournament, and more importantly winning the title,” the Woman Grandmaster added.
Humpy’s last title at an official Fide tournament was at the Women’s Grand Prix at Istanbul in March 2009.
Bhullar tied 4th after Rd3 of Singapore Classic
Indian golfer Gaganjeet Bhullar remained in the hunt for a strong finish although he slipped a couple of rungs to tied fourth after returning a modest two-under 70 in the third and penultimate round of the USD 400,000 Handa Singapore Classic here on Saturday.
Bhullar, a two-time Asian Tour champion, has a total of 14-under 202 and is six strokes behind leader Peter Karmis (70) of South Africa.
The Punjab-golfer rued poor iron play as he closed with three birdies against one bogey today.
"To be honest I didn't hit the ball that close. I didn't hit many balls on the green in regulation and the balls which I hit close wasn't birdie opportunities," he said.
"I could have been much better but I guess Peter has played well again. He deserves to be there and hopefully tomorrow I can scramble up the leader board," added Bhullar.
SSP Chowrasia was the nest best-placed Indian tied 12th after 71 in the third round took his overall score to 12-under 204.
Himmat Rai (69) was tied 36th with a total of nine-under 207, while a stroke a adrift was Anirban Lahiri (73) at the tied 45th spot.
| |
|---|
Americans Huber, King on opposite sides of women's doubles final
An American will be crowned one-half of the women's doubles championship team after Liezel Huber teamed with Russian Nadia Petrova to defeat Yung-Jan Chan and Jie Zheng, 6-3, 6-2, in the semifinals Friday.
Huber, a 34-year-old who was born in South Africa and became an American citizen in 2007, is a four-time Grand Slam champion with former partner Cara Black. Petrova will be playing her first major final of any kind.
Their opponents will be 21-year-old Californian Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan. King and Shvedova are the reigning Wimbledon champions, eliminating both of their opponents in Sunday's final along the way.
The teams of Huber & Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Petrova & Samantha Stosur each lost to King and Shvedova, 6-4, 6-4, at Wimbledon.
Zvonareva beats top seed Wozniacki and reach final
Vera Zvonareva, the lowest seed of the four women in the semifinals, overcame broken strings in five racquets and took advantage of an error-riddled performance by the top seed, Caroline Wozniacki, to advance to her second consecutive major final, 6-4, 6-3, in under 90 minutes."I was patient and aggressive," said Zvonareva, who celebrated her 26th birthday on Tuesday. "With those windy conditions you have to play sometimes ugly, you know. You don't have to expect to play your best tennis."
"I made some mistakes today that I usually don't do," said Wozniacki. "It was a tough day for me in the office. That's the way tennis is sometimes."
"I framed a few shots that -- usually maybe I do one or two frames in the match; today maybe I made, I don't know, ten," continued Wozniacki.
"Tomorrow is another day, and I will have to go out there and try my best again. That's it," said Zvonareva.
"I know if I'm doing it, if I'm playing well, I can beat anyone."
Clijsters comes back to defeat Venus and reach final
"It obviously means a lot to be in the final and to give myself a chance to defend my title from last year. It's a great opportunity," Clijsters said. "But obviously beating Venus here last year and this year, it's a good feeling. I think today was probably one of the best matches that I've played throughout the tournament.""I was able to raise my level, and that's probably what I'm most pleased about, is obviously that I was able to win a close match like this, but that I was able to kind of rise to the occasion when I had to," Clijsters said.
"I think I played a lot of big points, but I think obviously in the tiebreak I wasn't able to play as well as I wanted. I had too many errors, and she played some good tennis," Williams said. "Obviously extremely disappointing not to be able to win this match today. I feel like the last few times I've played her I haven't been at my top, I haven't been very healthy. So knowing that I can still obviously almost win, you know, I'm just looking forward to the last time, where I can be a lot closer to 100 percent and play even better."
"I mean, it's instinct when you decide to do that, and it worked," Clijsters said of the great lob. "I mean, it worked. It was an important point, and I'm happy to get through."
"She's a very tough opponent," Clijsters said of Zvonareva. "Obviously, I've lost my last two matches against her that we've played against each other, so it's gonna be a tough battle. She's a player who doesn't give you much. She's always there, hangs in there. It's not that she has a game that's very unpredictable, but what she does she does extremely well."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
