India’s Aditi Ashok fought back with three birdies on the back nine in the third-round card of 3-under 69 at the JM Eagle Los Angeles Championship. | Photo Credit: Getty Images via AFP

GOLF

Aditi Ashok cards 69 to move to T-36 in Los Angeles

India’s Aditi Ashok fought back with three birdies on the back nine to move up to tied 36th place with a third-round card of 3-under 69 at the JM Eagle Los Angeles Championship.

Aditi birdied the sixth but gave it back on the Par-5 seventh. On the back nine, she birdied the 11th and added two more gains on the 16th and the 18th for a 69, after 70-72 on the first two days.

Korea’s Sei Young Kim led by two following a roller-coaster round of 71. She had five birdies on the front and ran up an eight-stroke lead with five holes left at El Caballero Country Club.

She then bogeyed four times in a row the 14th to the 17th. Her late meltdown with four straight bogeys gave two-time event winner Hannah Green and others a foot in the door.

She salvaged an up-and-down from off the back of the 18th green to salvage a two-shot advantage.

Kim (71) is 15-under, while Green, the 2023 and 2024 champion at Wilshire Country Club, had a 67 to join Suvichaya Vinijchaitham (67), Jessica Porvasnik (68) and Ina Yoon (71) at 13 under. Former UCLA star Patty Tavatanakit was another stroke back after a 67.

- PTI

Pranavi shoots 3-under to move to 30th place in Joburg

Pranavi Urs, the lone Indian in the weekend rounds, carded 3-under 70 to rise up to the 30th place at the Joburg Ladies Open on the Ladies European Tour.

After 70-74 on the first two days, she had six birdies against three bogeys and reached 5-under for 54 holes and was placed a respectable T-30th in the Euros 330,000 event.

The other Indian golfers, Diksha Dagar, Tvesa Malik, Avani Prashanth and Hitaashee Bakshi, missed the 36-hole cut at the Par-73 course measuring 6710 yards.

Three French golfers, all past winners on Ladies European Tour (LET), Camille Chevalier, Celine Herbin and Agathe Laisne went low on moving day at Randpark Golf Club. They will now play in the final group.

Chevalier and Herbin lead the way on 16-under par after carding rounds of 67 (-6) and 68 (-5) respectively in South Africa.

- PTI

Mane eyes another title

Fresh from his maiden AM Green IGPL Trophy, Udayan Mane will eye another title at the third leg of the African Swing, the AM Green IGPL Invitational Congo, teeing off at the par-73 Golf Club de Lubumbashi on Monday.

Mane, who had finished tied third in Mauritius, secured a commanding seven-shot victory over seasoned Gaganjeet Bhullar at the iconic Royal Johannesburg Golf Club’s West Course on Saturday.

Rounds of 65-64-67 for a 20-under total, the best on the AM Green IGPL season this year gave him a big fillip both in terms of ending a title drought and boost to his confidence.

“It’s been 1,578 days since my last professional win, so this one carry real meaning for me personally,” Mane said.

With a few AM Green IGPL players off to Singapore for the International Series event, some of Mane’s top rivals like Bhullar, Sachin Baisoya, Karandeep Kochhar and Pukhraj Singh Gill will be skipping the Congo event.

However, some of the leading contenders for this week will include Mane, his Atri Mumbai teammate, Aman Raj, a multiple winner in 2025, Kapil Kumar, also a winner in 2025, young guns Veer Ganapathy and Raghav Chugh who are looking for their maiden win.

Newcomers Kanav Chauhan, Danish Verma will also be looking at good finishes to give themselves a push in early part of the season.

Milind Soni, who was sixth in Mauritius and T-11 in Joburg will look at continuing the form, while Harshjeet Sethie, who like Soni is coached by Rahul Bajaj, showed some good form in Joburg.

The top women pros in action this week are Ridhima Dilawari, Vidhatri Urs, Khushi Khanijau, Seher Atwal, Mannat Brar, Shagun Narain, Jahaanvie Walia and Anisha Agarwalla. In addition there will be Neha Tripathi.

- PTI

TENNIS

Balaji-Oberleitner pair wins Challenger title in Portugal

India’s N Sriram Balaji and his Austrian partner Neil Oberleitner won the doubles title at the ATP Challenger Tour event in Oeiras, Portugal, on Saturday.

The third-seeded Indo-Austrian duo beat Nicolas Barrientos of Colombia and Ariel Behar of Uruguay 6-7(7), 6-4, [11-9] in the final after saving a match point in the super tiebreak. The pair gained 125 ranking points.

It is the 18th career title on the second-tier challenger tour for Balaji and fourth in 2026 with Oberleitner.

Vaidehee Chaudhari and Dutch player Jasmijn Gimbrere finished as runner-up at the women’s USD 40,000 ITF event in Bujumbura, Burundi. The duo lost 4-6, 7-5, [10-5] to the American-Dutch pair of Julia Adams and Merel Hoedt.

On the junior circuit, teen sensation Maaya Rajeshwaran defeated Spain’s Paola Pinera Celorio 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 to clinch the J300 title in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France, while Arnav Paparkar beat Japan’s Kanta Watanabe 6-1, 6-2 in the J200 final in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

- Team Sportstar

SQUASH

HCL Squash PSA Challenger Tour: Suraj Chand storms into men’s final

Suraj Kumar Chand brushed aside Hong Kong’s Wailok To 11-8, 11-7, 11-6 in the men’s semifinals of the HCL Squash PSA Challenger Tour at the Indian Squash Academy in Chennai on Sunday.

Second seed Chand, ranked 134 in the world, will meet South Korean eighth seed Jeongmin Ryu in what will be the Indian’s fifth PSA Tour final.

- Team Sportstar

MOTORSPORT

Karna Kadur lands the spoils in South India Rally

Bengaluru ace Karna Kadur along with co-driver Kumar Ramaswamy (Coimbatore) of Arka Motorsports survived a turbo failure and surged to victory in the 49th South India Rally, organised by the Madras Motor Sports Club, at the Madras International Circuit, in Chennai even as his arch-rival Gaurav Gill retired with mechanical problem.

The 37-year-old Kadur’s pace through the weekend was literally as hot as the weather itself as he blitzed the combined FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship powered by Vamcy Merla and the FMSCI Indian National Rally Championship grids while yet again showcasing his undoubted talent.

Finishing in second spot in the APRC was Hyderabad’s Jeet Jhabkah and co-driver Musa Sherif from Kasargod, while the Spanish husband-wife team of Edgar Vigo Lopez and Fatima Ameneiro Teijeiro completed the podium.

- Team Sportstar

Published on Apr 19, 2026