THE TIMES OF INDIA, AHMEDABADTHURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 201324 TIMES SPORT

Ahmedabad: An array of championsfrom European, Asian and PGTI Tourshas arrived in Ahmedabad for the thirdedition of the Gujarat Kensville Chal-lenge making it by far the strongest theevent has seen so far. The event, whichhas now become the regular season-opener for both the Indian PGTI and theEuropean Challenge Tours, will for thefirst time feature a Major champion,Rich Beem, who won the 2002 PGAChampionship, ahead of Tiger Woods.The competitive field also includes for-mer European Tour winners — RhysDavies, Raymond Russell, Jose-PhillipeLima and Daniel Vanscik. There are al-so several Asian Tour winners, like the2011 Kensville winner Gaganjeet Bhul-lar (4 wins), Shiv Kapur, Rahil Gangjee,Himmat Rai and old warhorse GauravGhei (3 wins).

This year both Bhullar and Gangjeeexude tremendous confidence on eve ofthe tournament.

“I am confident and chances are def-initely high but in golf you neverknow,” said Bhullar and added: “Youhave many European Tour winnershere this week, so it will be different anda lot will depend on how you play inthose four days. I had a very good roundtoday (nine birdies) and I am sure Ishould be able to take the same form for-ward into the main tournament.”

Gangjee said: “Yesterday and today,I played pretty good. Today I shot four-under. I had a long holiday, but last weekwas good preparation. The course isplaying much better than it did lastyear, more lush green and I hope to re-peat last year’s show.”

Scott Barr is a surprise entrant, hav-

ing last played in the Challenge Tourback in 2008. The other player, whomakes his maiden appearance in Kens-ville is Terry Pilkadaris, a former three-time winner on Asian Tour. Two otheryoungsters who could make an impacton international golf in the near futureand return to Kensville after makingtheir debut here last year are An By-eong-hun and Peter Uihlein, the 2009and 2010 US Amateur champions.

Adding to the excitement is a bunchof young Indians, who are turning prowith this event, led by two-time Indianamateur champion Seenappa Chik-krangappa, Angad Cheema, the reign-ing Indian amateur champion, 16-year-old Shubhankar Sharma, Khalin Joshiand Honey Baisoya.

Another player hoping the eventwill do the same for him is Shiv Kapur.He said, “The second half of 2012 wasfine with a string of top-10s and I endedthe year with my first win in a long timeagainst a very strong field at home.”

Strongest Ever Field Assembles For 3rd Edition Of Gujarat Kensville Challenge

Gaganjeet Bhullar

Pics: Yogesh Chawda

AN INTENSE BATTLE ON THE CARDSAjit Bezbaruah | TNN

Ahmedabad: It was a memorableouting for three youngsters fromAhmedabad — Varun Parikh, AnshulPatel and Kairav Shah — at the Pro-Amevent of the Gujarat Kensville Challenge2013. They won the Pro-Am event with acombined score of 53 (minus 19) over astrong and experienced field. But morethan the awards, the three youngsterswill return home richer with theinvaluable experience they got byspending time with Gaganjeet Bhullar,one of the best pro golfers in the country.

Even Bhullar was all praise for thetrio. “I heard before tee off that they aresome of the best juniors from Gujarat andit was a pleasure playing with thembecause they all are really good,” he said.

Bhullar said: “Anshul is left-handedand I have never seen abetter left-handed swingin my life. He has got theperfect mechanics andhe was in the Hank HaneyAcademy in the US (oneof the finest golf schoolsin the world).”

About Varun, Bhullarsaid that “he has a verygood temperament and agood overall game.”

"There are so manygolf courses in Gujarat,hopefully we will seesome good golferscoming out of Gujarat.And these three kidsmight start the golf

revolution Gujarat badly needs," saidBhullar.

The youngsters were so thrilled toplay with the champion golfer that theycouldn’t stop praising how good Bhullarwas. “I hardly remember seeing an Indiapro hitting the ball with such perfectionand accuracy. It was the fairway and thegreen and the putts were right on themiddle of the cup, no edges,” said Anshul.

“You really learn a lot by seeing sucha champion from so close. The way heconcentrates before his shots and theway he executes them. And he does thatnot once or twice but consistently, whichshows his class,” said Varun anddeclared: “There is no stopping Bhullarfrom winning this one.”

Whether Bhullar wins the tourney ornot, only time will tell but there is nodoubt that he was won these kids over.

City trio wins Pro-Am event, Bhullar’s praiseAjit Bezbaruah TNN

Ahmedabad: HL College ofCommerce (HLCC) defeatedGovernment Commerce Col-lege (GCC), Gandhinagar 4-1in the JG Cup All-Gujarat In-ter-College Football Tourna-ment played at the KASAGround and organised joint-ly by the Gujarat State Foot-ball Association and JGCommerce College.

Yunus Syed opened theaccount in the 7th minute ofthe game which Ajay RajSingh doubled three minuteslater. Atal Gatad added one

more in the 16th minute andHL went into the breatherwith a 3-0 lead. They cameback and pumped one morein the 27th minute throughAkash Shah. Towards theclose, Satish Pillai pulled oneback for the Gandhinagarteam but the show was allover by then.

Vadodara team's domina-tion in football continues asMSU Baroda blanked LDArts 5-0 in an one-sided en-counter. Austrin scored thesecond hat-trick of the tour-nament in the space of threeminutes and Branden B net-ted twice to complete the hu-miliation. The winners led2-0 at half-time.

A strong contender forthe title St Xavier's Collegetoo showed their prowess bydefeating HLBBA 5-0 in an-other one-sided encounter.

Vijay Rathva scored twice (14and 65th min), Nehal Ga-neshan scored twice (22ndand 42nd) and Sanjay Martinpumped in one in the 25thminute to complete the tally.

Other results: St Xavier'sCollege bt HLBBA 5-3 (VijayRathva 14' 65', Nehal Ganesh-an 22', 42', Sanjay Martin 25';MBP Rashtrabhasah bt NewLJCC 3-1, Government Artsbt HKCC 4-0.

Shrishti wins gold medalsin national in-line skating:Shrishti Agarwal of RachnaHigh School won three goldmedals in under-11 road race

and rink race in in-line cate-gory of the 58th NationalSchool Games Federation ofIndia held in Delhi recently.Bhavnagar’s Khushi Rang-wani won one silver and Su-rat’s Dhanshree More tookone silver and one bronze inthe same category.

Meanwhile, Shrishti fol-lowed up her brilliant showwith three more medals inthe 8-10 age category of roadrace and rink race of the 50th

National Roller Skating Fed-eration of India held inMumbai on January 25.Khushi bagged three bronzemedals in the same event.

HLCC thrash GCC TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Action from the match between MBP Rashtrabhasha College of Com-merce and New LG College of Commerce in Ahmedabad on Wednesday

Yogesh Chawda

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The world thought it wouldtake nine lives and a little

more for anyone who has any-thing to do with Arsenal to gettheir hands on the holy grailof European club football: theUEFA Champions League tro-phy. Season after season hasfaded away, with the big boys,the also-rans and even the un-knowns bouncing with thecherished cup every yearwhile we Gooners, have onlyjust looked on. But Wednes-day, in a way, turned thataround for two Arsenal fans.

Rolling across Mumbai,the sixth edition of the trophydesigned by Jurg Stadelmann,made a stopover at the Timesof India office and all thedaunting thoughts of squar-ing up against Bayern Mun-ich in a little more than a fort-night ceased to bother themoment the case concealing itwas opened.

There may have been noroar of a stadium possessed,no uncorking of the bubbly orstreamers and confetti in redand white raining down on us.But it all played out in the headthe moment we got our hands

to something that ArseneWenger has tirelessly cravedfor over the last 16 years.

Running our fingers overthe list of past winners in-scribed on the trophy, some-where down we hoped we’dcome across Arsenal. Insteadwhat we found were obscurenames of clubs that had tastedChampions League glory.There were even those namesthat had us nod in disbelief(the blue half of London), andsprouting sinister thoughts tosimply scratch them off.

There wasn’t an avalancheof shutterbugs when we liftedthe trophy but the ever-believ-ing Arsenal voices inside usspoke of how we were holdingsomething that could be ‘ours’this May. Something that Ar-sene Wenger would cry whenhe held while his bunch offighters who were written offstood and applauded. Some-thing that turned our bitter-ness to empathy for Wenger.We feel you, Professor! We’vetouched something we wantyou to hold.

A dream come true for fansKunaal Majgaonkar &

Samidha Sharma | TNN

The UEFA Champions League trophy at The Times Of India office inMumbai on Wednesday

TOI

The Los Angeles Lakers continued to build on theirrecent momentum with a 111-106 win over the NewOrleans Hornets on Tuesday, as the home teamstaved off a late rally to register a third consecutivevictory.Kobe Bryant dished out 11 assists and Dwight Ho-ward scored 24 points as Los Angeles, comfortablyin control at 98-80 midway through the fourth quar-ter, almost blew the win when the Hornets put to-gether a 16-2 run in the closing stages.

Nadal keeping expectations low beforecomeback: Spaniard Rafa Nadal is keeping his ex-pectations low ahead of his long-awaited return tocompetitive action in early February after sevenmonths out of tennis with a knee injury. The 26-year-old French Open champion has not played since los-ing to Czech Lukas Rosol in the second round atWimbledon in June due to a partial tear of the patel-la tendon and inflammation in his left knee.

Neha moves into four-shot lead, Vani drops:Neha Tripathi played a flawless brilliant back nine ofthree-under 33 to come up with an even par 72,which catapulted her into the lead at the end ofround 2 in the opening event of the 2013 Hero Wom-en's Professional Golf Tour in KOlkata on Wednes-day. Playing at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, Neha,lying second after the first round of 77, has a total of149. Neha is four shots clear of Smriti Mehra (77-76),who is at 153. First round leader Vani Kapoor plum-meted down with an 80 and has a total of 155.

IOC plans to cut one sport in Feb, add anoth-er in May: Olympic sport will learn next month thatits Games future is in jeopardy when the Interna-tional Olympic Committee (IOC) meets to decide theshape of the summer Games from 2020. The IOC'sexecutive board, meeting in Lausanne on Feb. 12and 13, will pick a core of 25 summer Olympic sportsthat will be put to a single vote at their session in Ar-gentina in September. “The IOC in February is ex-pected to make a recommendation on the 25 coresports to be put up for a vote in Buenos Aires,” anIOC official said on Wednesday.

Dortmund boss aims to be Guardiola's 'Mou-rinho': Borussia Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp hassaid he wants to be the Bundesliga's version of JoseMourinho to rival Bayern Munich's head coach PepGuardiola for the 2013/14 season. Having won 14 ti-tles in the four years he spent as Barcelona coach,Guardiola often went head-to-head with Real Ma-drid boss Jose Mourinho in Spanish football's 'ElClasico' rivalry. AGENCIES

SNAP SHOTS

Lakers hold off Hornets

London: Manchester City,poised to sell striker Mario Ba-lotelli, could not crack resil-ient Queens Park Rangers andin-form goalkeeper Julio Ce-sar in a 0-0 draw at the PremierLeague’s basement club onTuesday.

City closed the gap on lead-ers Manchester United to fourpoints but a frustrating nightfor Roberto Mancini’s side in awet and windy capital handedUnited the chance to increasetheir advantage to seven whenthey host Southampton onWednesday.

“Julio Cesar saved every-thing and we made some mis-takes - on another day maybewe could have scored fourgoals,” Mancini, who signedthe Brazilian back in 2005

when he was Inter Milan man-ager, said.

United have 56 points withCity on 52.

Aston Villa’s season con-tinued to lurch from bad toworse after 2-1 defeat againstfellow strugglers NewcastleUnited. This dropped the free-falling Midlands club into therelegation zone.

Wigan Athletic movedabove Villa and out of the dropzone on goal difference aftercoming from two goals downto draw 2-2 at Stoke City.

Mancini, who left Balotelliout of his squad with the Italystriker set to move back hometo Serie A with AC Milan, wentfor broke in the second-halfwith his remaining three fron-tline strikers Sergio Aguero,

mir Petkovic’s side through totheir first national Cup finalsince 2009, but then Juve hitback a minute into injury timewhen Arturo Vidal reactedquickest inside the penaltybox to stab the ball home.

Results: Lazio 2 (Gonzalez53, Floccari 90+3) Juventus 1(Vidal 90+1), Lazio win 3-2 onaggregate.

Shenhua dispute Drogba'sGalatasaray deal

Shanghai: Ivory Coaststriker Didier Drogba re-mains under contract withShanghai Shenhua and histransfer this week to Turkishclub Galatasaray is a violationof those terms, the Chineseside said on Wednesday. AGEN-

CIES

Carlos Tevez and substituteEdin Dzeko all on the pitch.

But they were thwarted bysturdy defending and the irre-pressible Cesar.

Lazio edge out Juventus Rome: Lazio beat Juven-

tus 2-1 after a dramatic finishto a pulsating Italian Cupsemifinal second leg on Tues-day to seal their place in the fi-nal against either Inter Milanor city rivals AS Roma. Withthe tie level at 1-1 after lastweek’s first leg in Turin, Laziotook the lead on the night atthe Stadio Olimpico when Al-varo Gonzalez headed in ameasured Cristian Ledesmacross.

It looked as if that goalwould be enough to take Vladi-

Rangers halt Manchester City’s charge

Madrid: Real Madrid goal-keeper IkerCasillas' girlf-riend, televi-sion sportsjournalist Sa-ra Carbon-ero, said Tues-day there was

a split between the team's play-ers and coach Jose Mourinho.

“It is the popular opinionthat the players don't get onwith their coach at all,” 28-year-old Carbonero told Mexicantelevision station Televisa.

“Right now, there is a splitin the changing room and wewill have to wait until the end ofthe season to see if Mourinhoends up going because he hasmany fronts open here at RealMadrid,” she said.

Spain's biggest sellingsports daily Marca last weeksaid Casillas and fellow captainSergio Ramos had urged clubchairman Florentino Perez tofire Mourinho before next sea-son. According to Marca, theywarned that several Real Ma-drid players would leave if thePortuguese stayed on next sea-son. AFP

Real a dividedhouse, says

Iker’s girlfriend

Mumbai: The Bombay HighCourt on Wednesdayasked badminton play-er Prajakta Sawant ifshe is ready to with-draw her allegation of

harassment against chief coachPullela Gopichand after the latterheld out an olive branch sayingthere is a need to move forward inthe interest of the sport and thenation.

The 20-year-old doubles playerranked 48 in the world moved

court in November 2012 sayingshe was kept out of nationalcoaching camp at Hyderabad forthe China, Hong Kong and Macauseries because she requested achange of her doubles and mixeddoubles partners. A divisionbench of Chief Justice MohitShah and Justice Anoop Mohta atthe last hearing had directed BAIto consider her entry for the up-

coming German Open in Febru-ary and the All England Open inMarch 2013.

Sawant’s advocate PiyushShah said she has been allowed toparticipate in these tournamentsbut at her own cost.

“The harassment continuestill today,’’ he added. The judgesquestioned why BAI could notsend Sawant at the government’sexpense. BAI’s advocate repliedthe decision to sponsor is on thebasis of performance of playersand currently Sawant’s perform-ance does not merit inclusion inthe team. He said there are playerswithout rankings who are payingfor their travel and lodging. Hesaid senior doubles player JwalaGutta, who will partner Sawant, isbeing sent on behalf of the BAIand Sawant is not part of the coregroup.

When he sought a longer timeto take instructions on whetherBAI would sponsor Sawant, Jus-tice Shah asked, “You want her tospend her time in court?” The law-yer then said he shall tell the courtduring the week.

HC puts shuttle in Prajakta’s court

Rosy Sequeira TNN

»BADMINTONMITIGATION IN SIGHT

Madrid: Spanish doctor Eufemia-no Fuentes, accused of master-minding a doping ring in cycling,told a court on Tuesday he also hadclients in other sports includingsoccer, tennis, athletics and boxingafter finally taking the stand in ahigh-profile and much-delayedtrial.

Fuentes and four other defend-ants are appearing before a Ma-drid judge almost seven years after

police seized anabolic steroids,transfusion equipment and bloodbags as part of a investigationcode-named "Operation Puerto".

The trial has attracted close in-ternational scrutiny because anti-doping authorities, who are repre-sented in court, are hopeful it willfinally lead to evidence of wrong-doing by athletes in sports otherthan cycling being made available.REUTERS

Doctor Dope had clientsin soccer and tennis too

JG CUP FOOTBALL

Parimal Nathwani, group president, Corporate Affairs, Re-liance Industries Ltd, gives away prize to one of the winners

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