Birmingham: India's badminton ace PV Sindhu won her maiden singles gold at the Commonwealth Games defeating Michelle Li of Canada 21-15, 21-13 on the last day of the quadrennial event in Birmingham on Monday.The 27-year-old two-time Olympic medallist Sindhu, who was unsuccessful in the previous two attempts, settling for silver at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast and bronze at the 2014 Glasgow Games, finally broke the jinx with a commanding performance against an opponent ranked 13th in the world.While world No. 7 Sindhu held the edge going into the title clash, a win was not a foregone conclusion given that her opponent was a former singles gold medallist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.Before the clash on Monday, Sindhu held an advantage over the Canadian having won eight of the 10 matches. In fact, Sindhu had played Li twice this year and defeated her on both occasions.The opening game was keenly contested with the scores level at 4-4. Using her height and penetrating smashes to great effect, Sindhu took a 14-8, finally winning the opening game 21-15.Sindhu won the second game with relative ease, taking an 11-6 lead at the mid-game interval. With Li continuing to find the net on returns, Sindhu made it 19-13. The Indian won the champ.—IANS

India's badminton ace PV Sindhu won her maiden singles gold at the Commonwealth Games defeating Michelle Li of Canada 21-15, 21-13 on the last day of the quadrennial event in Birmingham on Monday.

 PV Sindhu lights up final day with gold in badminton singles

Badminton

Berlin:&nbsp;Coco Gauff was too sharp with her return game for Naomi Osaka in the second round of the Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose, coming away with a 6-4, 6-4 win.Gauff, the world number 11 and San Jose tournament's sixth seed, created 12 break point opportunities in the match in the match on Thursday, while only allowing one for Osaka, despite eight double-faults, reports DPA.Ultimately, Gauff won 41 per cent (29-of-71) of the points off Osaka's serve, while converting 85 per cent (28-of-33) of her successful first serves into points.Earlier in the day in a major upset, top seed Maria Sakkari was eliminated in straight sets 6-1, 6-3 by American Shelby Rogers.The world number three struggled with her serve throughout, landing only 45 per cent of her first serves, and winning just 52 per cent (12-of-23) of those points.World number six Aryna Sabalenka needed three sets to defeat unseeded American Carolina Dolehide 5-7, 6-1, 7-5, and Russia's Veronika Kudermetova had less trouble dispatching Claire Liu 6-2, 7-5 to set up an exciting match with Ons Jabeur in the quarterfinal.Meanwhile, in Washington at the Citi Open, Emma Raducanu played in the longest two-set match of the WTA season, defeating Camila Osorio 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-4) in two hours and 49 minutes.Both women created at least a dozen break point opportunities, with four total breaks each as the young British star battled blisters on her hands.Raducanu will play Liudmila Samsonova after the Russian eliminated Australia's Ajla Tomljanovich 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.In the last match of the day, China's Xiyu Wang got the better of Croatia's Donna Vekic 4-6, 7-5, 6-1, and she will meet the winner between Tereza Martincova and Victoria Azarenka in the quarter-final.—IANS

Coco Gauff was too sharp with her return game for Naomi Osaka in the second round of the Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose, coming away with a 6-4, 6-4 win. Gauff, the world number 11 and San Jose tournament's sixth seed, created 12 break point opportunities in the match in the match on Thursday, while only allowing one for Osaka, despite eight double-faults, reports DPA.

 Gauff defeats Osaka in San Jose, Raducanu grinds out Washington win

Coco Gauff was too sharp with her return game for Naomi Osaka in the second round of the Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose, coming away with a 6-4, 6-4 win.
Gauff, the world number 11 and San Jose tournament's sixth seed, created 12 break point opportunities in the match in the match on Thursday, while only allowing one for Osaka, despite eight double-faults, reports DPA.

Birmingham: PV Sindhu was the only one to win her match while former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth suffered defeat as India went down to Malaysia 1-3 in the final of the mixed team competition to settle for silver in the 2022 Commonwealth Games here.The Indian contingent had reached Birmingham as defending champions in three categories but has been able to retain the gold medal in only one. The Indian women's table tennis team had earlier failed to defend its title as it went down to Malaysia in the quarterfinals, leaving the Men's TT team as the only side to retain the gold medal it had won at Gold Coast in 2018.Ironically, India had defeated Malaysia by a 3-1 margin four years ago.This time, the Malaysians pulled the plug on their more renowned opponents, who were definitely the better team on paper. There was more revenge of sorts on the day as Singapore defeated hosts England to win the bronze medal, avenging their defeat at the same stage four years back.In the 2018 final, the Indian team defeated Malaysia 3-1. On Tuesday, it suffered defeat by the same margin with Sindhu beating Jin Wai Goh in the women's singles after Satwaksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had lost to Teng Gang Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Son 21-18, 21-15.Sindhu levelled the score by beating Jin Wei Goh 22-20, 21-17 in the women's singles, quelling the challenge put up by the Malaysians. The first game was tight as the Malaysian put up a good fight but in the second, Sindhu was in total control to emerge victorious.The biggest disappointment for India, which virtually sealed its fate, was the defeat Kidambi Srikanth suffered at the hands of Ng Tze Yong, ranked 44th in the world as compared to Srikanth's 13th.The Indians opted for Srikanth instead of the higher-ranked Lakshya Sen, thinking that the veteran's experience would help him get the better of the Malaysian opponent.With Malaysia 2-1 up, India's hopes depended on the young doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand who lost to the experienced Malaysian pair of Koong Le Pearly Tan and Thinaan Muralitharan 21-18, 2-17 to end the country's hopes of winning gold.The Indian team's Danish doubles coach Mathias Boe felt his team made a number of mistakes at crucial junctures while the Malaysians were the better side on the day. "They executed their plans better while my players made mistakes at crucial junctures... The men's doubles match was a 50-50 one and we had to win that."We were expecting Sindhu and Srikanth to win their respective matches. But that did not happen. Srikanth lost unexpectedly. I would not blame Treesa and Gayatri as they tried their best, I am happy with them, they will become better as they gain experience," he said.Boe said he expected his players will analyse their game and learn from the mistakes they made to come back strongly in the individual competitions to win more medals.The individual competitions will have both PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth as among the favourites for the title, and though Sindhu looked in fine touch on Tuesday, Srikanth will have to pull up his socks in order to retain the silver medal he had won four years ago. Srikanth came into the tournament without playing matches in recent competitions and will have to recharge his batteries soon so as to help India to a gold medal in men's singles.—IANS

PV Sindhu was the only one to win her match while former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth suffered defeat as India went down to Malaysia 1-3 in the final of the mixed team competition to settle for silver in the 2022 Commonwealth Games here.

Kidambi Srikanth suffers shock defeat as India settle for silver in Mixed Team badminton

Washington:&nbsp;Playing her first singles match in nearly a year, former World No. 1 Venus Williams suffered an opening-round defeat against Canadian qualifier Rebecca Marino at the Citi Open, here.The seven-time Grand Slam singles champion Venus lost 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 to Rebecca in a 1-hour and 52-minute clash on Monday night."Just a little rusty. I really put myself in good positions in the third set, too. Just trying to shake off some rust. That's just to be expected. All I can do is just play another tournament and play better," said Williams after the match.In the clash between two excellent servers, superiority of the first delivery was the determining factor. Williams grabbed the one-set lead by winning nearly three-quarters of her first-serve points in the opener, where she never faced a breakpoint.Marino, though, won 86 per cent of her first-service points in a commanding second set, showing that she could hang with Williams' legendary power game, just as she had in their lone prior meeting 12 years ago at the 2010 US Open, where Williams prevailed in two close sets.The 31-year old Marino has made a comeback of her own after an absence from tour between 2014 and 2017, and her results have steadily progressed to the point where she cracked the Top 100 last month for the first time since 2014.The Canadian veteran's recent successes helped in the final set, where Williams led by a break at 4-1. Marino cleaned up her unforced errors as the third set went on, and she found well-placed serves on critical points, including facing break point at 4-3, to sweep the final five games.On the other hand, Williams struggled with double faults down the stretch in her singles return. Williams had 13 double faults in the match, including four in her final two service games.The 42-year old Williams had not played a singles match since a first-round loss to Hsieh Su-wei in Chicago last August and the American legend is currently unranked. However, she did not come into the Citi Open completely out of match experience.Williams paired with Jamie Murray in the Wimbledon mixed doubles, garnering one win and suffering an extremely narrow second-round loss in one of the best matches of the tournament.At both Wimbledon and Washington, Williams exhibited good form and fitness against solid players, even in her losses. She will now move onto WTA 1000 events in Toronto and Cincinnati, where she is entered over the next two weeks.—IANS

Playing her first singles match in nearly a year, former World No. 1 Venus Williams suffered an opening-round defeat against Canadian qualifier Rebecca Marino at the Citi Open, here.

 Citi Open: Venus Williams loses to Rebecca Marino on her return to singles

Birmingham: Indian squash players Joshna Chinappa and Saurav Ghosal advanced to the quarterfinals of Commonwealth Games 2022 after winning their respective singles event matches, here on Sunday.In the women's singles, the experienced Joshna Chinappa quashed a strong challenge from the 21-year-old Kaitlyn Watts of New Zealand and won the round of 16 match 3-1 (11-8, 9-11, 11-4, 11-6) to advance into the next stage.The 35-year-old Indian was caught off guard in the first game after Kaitlyn made a brisk start. However, Joshna, the reigning world champion in women's doubles, gained on her younger opponent by first levelling at 8-8, and then winning the next three points to take the 1-0 lead. In the second game, world No 95 Kaitlyn pulled off a reverse against the world No 17 Indian squash player. Joshna was leading initially but struggled to match the pace of Watts. With her back against the wall, Joshna stormed back with better placements and took the next two games 11-4 and 11-6.Chinappa, looking for her first gold in singles at CWG, will take on world No 20 Hollie Naughton from Canada in the quarterfinals.Meanwhile, world No 15 Saurav Ghosal proved too strong for Canada's David Baillargeon in the men's singles.Ghosal, India's top-ranked squash player, beat world No 62 David Baillargeon 3-0 (11-6, 11-2, 11-6). He will take on world No. 34 Greg Lobban of Scotland in the quarterfinals.The men's singles and women's singles quarterfinal squash events at CWG 2022 will take place on Monday.—IANS