Sania-Vesnina reach semi final

Indian Tennis icon Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Elena Vesnina of Russia thrashed Gisela Dulko of Argentina and Flavia Pennetta of Italy to cruise into the semi-final round of the Women's doubles event of the French Open. Sania who had crashed out in the Singles event has been performing especially well in the doubles event as they crushed their opponent by 6-0 7-5 margin. They won the match in just 66 minutes.

Rohan Bopanna of India and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan cruised in to men’s doubles quarterfinals on Monday by defeating Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan and Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan by 6-3, 7-5.The Indo-Pak pair will now face the tough challenge of Mike and Bob Bryan who overcome Russia's Teymuraz Gabashvili and Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan 7-6(6) 7-5 margin to reach the quarterfinal.

Jwala, Ashwini target top 10 ranks

Promising women's doubles shuttler Ashwini Ponnappa said she and her associate Jwala Gutta can hope to be among the world's top-10 by the end of this year. Ashwini and Jwala beat world number eight Thai pair Duanganong Aroonkesorn and Kunchala Voravichitchaikul in a important match in the second Group C tie of the Sudirman Cup in Qingdao, China just which helped them reach the quarterfinals for the first time.

Ashwini said the performance was a indication of the hard work that they have put in."We are very satisfied with our performance. It only shows that besides the top four, rest is beatable. To beat the top four we have to put in more hard work and we are training hard, we will be there soon," Ashwini told."We have actually put in a lot of hard work in the last few months and this win will boost our assurance to do well and qualify for the London Olympics," she added.

One half of the Commonwealth Games gold-medallist pair, Ashwini, said they are aiming to crack the top-10 by this year to boost their probability of qualifying for the 2012 mega-event."We are currently 32 and the Sudirman Cup performance will improve our rankings. We are playing three back-to-back tournaments in June and after that we will have a month's break."Hopefully we will be inside the top 10 by the year end," said Ashwini, who along with Jwala will play in Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia in June.

Football:Champions League Preview - Barcelona vs Man United

The breaking news you want to sink your teeth into before Manchester United and Barcelona clash at Wembley. The mood ahead of the UEFA Champions League final between United and Barca has been friendly. A good final for the impartial is expected with both teams doing their best to talk up the abilities of their opponents.

The Red Devils with three European Cups to their name are still behind their bitter rivals Liverpool who have five while a win for Barca at Wembley would cement the Catalans' fight for being the best side ever. Motivation to go out and win the game on Saturday will not be a problem for both sets of players.

Paes, Bhupathi in second round

India's Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi with their respective partners advanced to the second round of French Open mixed doubles on Wednesday. The seventh seeded pair of Paes and Czech Iveta Benesova defeated France's Aravane Rezai and Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgria 6-3, 6-1.They now await the winner of the match among India's Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna and Chia-Jung Chuang of Chinese Taipei and Marcin Matkowski of Poland.

In contrast, the fifth-seeded pair of Bhupathi and China's Jie Zheng had to dig deep to beat Czech Petra Kvitova and Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukrain 6-7(3), 6-0, 10-8.They now play the champ of the match between Czech Klara Zakopalova and Frantisek Cermak and Rennae Stubbs of Australia and Marcelo Melo of Brazil.

Ljubicic beats Devvarman

The red clay of Roland Garros is not one of Somdev Devvarman favoured surfaces. It proved to be true as he crashed out in the first round of the French Open, losing in straight sets to Croat Ivan Ljubicic in a little over two hours on Tuesday. To counter his explosive serves, one's own should be up to the mark. That's what let the 26-year-old Indian down

The 2006 semifinalist also served six more aces than Somdev's four. Somdev could only look on helplessly as Ljubicic beat him 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 at his own style of play. The world No. 37's baseline game was far superior than Somdev's as he hit 40 winners compared to his opponent's 23.

"I was trying to find ways to break him but unluckily he served really well," said Somdev after the match. "That's what good players do against you. This guy made the semis here a few years ago, is a former top-five player, and has the experience and game to hurt anybody out here."Last year, Somdev had lost in the first round in Paris and has never gone beyond the second round in a Grand Slam.

Vijay seal Olympic berth

Vijay Kumar became the seventh Indian shooter to earn a quota place for the 2012 London Olympics. The 26-year-old Army shooter won a silver medal in his favorite 25m rapid-fire pistol occasion in the ongoing ISSF World Cup at Fort Benning, USA on Saturday. The other Indian shooters who have qualified for the quadrennial Games so far are: Ronjan Sodhi, Gagan Narang, Hari Om Singh, Sanjeev Rajput, Annu Raj Singh and Rahi Sarnobat.

In the qualification round, Vijay was positioned fourth with a score of 584/600. According to the new rules, however, the qualification round score was not carried forward to the final. After eight rounds of finals, he was tied-first with 2008 Olympic bronze medallist Reitz Christian with a score of 29. In the final shoot off, Vijay had to resolve for second place after hitting one out of four targets. This is the second world cup medal for the Arjuna award winning shooter. Earlier he had won a silver medal in the ISSF World Cup in 2009.

Tough draw for Somdev

India's Somdev Devvarman and Sania Mirza have been handed out a tough draw in their respective singles type at the French Open, starting on Sunday. Somdev Devvarman is set to face Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia, while Sania Mirza has been drawn against Kristina Barrois of Germany at Roland Garros. Ranked 66, Somdev will face an climbing task against World No 36 Ljubicic

Somdev has never played the former World No 3 Ljubicic before but he can take heart from the fact that has been in good form this season, having made it to the pre-quarterfinals at Indian Wells, where he lost to World No 1 Rafael Nadal. This would only be the second look in the Roland Garros main draw for the 26-year-old Indian.

World No 74 Sania is also not expected to have an easy outing against Barrois, ranked 59, who had reached the final of the Estoril Open in April. In her four appearances in French Open, Sania have cleared the second round only once in 2007.

Roddick, Ferrero out of French Open

Andy Roddick and former champ Juan Carlos Ferrero have pulled out of the French Open due to shoulder injuries. World number 11 Roddick had skipped this week's lead-up event in Nice to try to get better in time for the Roland Garros tournament which begins on Sunday.

But organisers this evening announced that the American, who has never made it past the fourth round in Paris, would miss the event along with 2003 champion Ferrero. Ferrero, 31, has played just two tournaments this year, both in his native Spain, as his ranking has slipped to 72.

Porto win Europa League

Porto took the Europa League trophy with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Braga in the final in Dublin. Falcao's header just before the end of the first half was enough to give the 33-year-old Porto boss Andre Villas-Boas his third trophy of an unbelievable first season in charge. Braga replacement Mossoro wasted a golden chance to level when he fired straight at Helton when clean through, but otherwise the Arsenalistas never looked like intimidating the Portuguese champions.

Manager Villas-Boas was delighted to lift the Europa League but he also admitted to being a little dissatisfied with the poor quality of the match."I do feel just a little sad, because both teams could have been better," he said."Both teams found it hard, but that is nothing new in a final."Braga are always very aggressive and very dense, which makes our work very hard."But there is a great joy in winning the trophy."

Falcao ended the battle as top scorer in the contest and he was delighted."I am very, very happy - I lived for a moment like this - but this is particularly for the team," he said."I thank God and Porto to be in a situation like this."Being the top-scorer is just an extra, what matters is the victory."Porto captain Helton was also celebrating his 33rd birthday on what proved to be a special night."Besides being very heavy, this trophy is a wonderful birthday gift," he said."We knew it would not be easy and that is how it proved."

Cornet beats Sania

Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza's suffered first round defeats in both singles and doubles events of a WTA tournament. In the singles on Tuesday, Sania fought hard but lost 4-6, 6-4, 1-6 to local wild card Alize Cornet after two hours and four minutes in the opening round of the $220,000 clay court event. In the doubles, Sania and her Czech partner Lucie Hradecka, top seeds, had lost the closely fought first round 7-5, 2-6, 10-12 to Germany's Angelique and Katarzyna Piter of Poland on Monday.

It was last WTA tournament before the Roland Garros, starting Sunday in Paris. In singles, Sania created four break chances in the first set but could change just one but in the second she managed to convert three of six chances. However, she lost steam in the important third set, in which she dropped her serve thrice.

IPL 2011 News

Man United to keep winning

Ryan Giggs is certain the current crop of Manchester United players are intended for greater success. At 37, the expert Welshman knows he will not be around for too much longer. However, with a 12th Premier League title safely tucked away, Giggs has previously committed himself to the Old Trafford cause for one more season, and Sir Alex Ferguson has not given up on the idea his longest-serving player may be around the season after that as well.

No matter how long he lasts, Giggs is sure United have a trophy-ladened future ahead of them, regardless of the challenge offered by the appearance of Manchester City."This side can go on to more things," he said."You look around the changing room at Fabio, Rafael, Chris Smalling and Javier Hernandez. They will be at the club a long time."You can see they love the club purely through the way they play and their manner around the training ground. It is obvious.

"It is all part of the manager's strategy for keeping things going."He has those three tiers. Now it is me, Paul Scholes, Edwin van der Sar and Gary Neville. Then you have those in their late 20s and early 30s and then the younger players." Giggs is certain United's record 19th championship was a collective effort, with selfless contributions from the likes of Park Ji-sung and Darren Fletcher and the most constant performer their skipper, Nemanja Vidic.

"You would find it hard to find a stand-out player this season," said Giggs. "It has been a real group effort."The team spirit has always been good and that has shown in some of the results we have clawed back."If you asked 10 United fans for their player of the season, the chances are you would get a different answer off the majority”.

Somdev rises in singles rankings

Somdev Devvarman took his singles rankings to a new high by hiking to number 68 in the ATP chart while Sania Mirza raised three rungs to 74 in the WTA list, released on Monday. Somdev gained two positions by making the quarter-finals of the Serbia Open, where he lost to Janko Tipsarevic last week. Sania had exited the Madrid Open in the first round after entering the main draw through qualifiers. In the doubles also she continual to improve as she now sits at number 27 with a gain of two slots.

In the ATP doubles chart, both the veteran stars -- Mahesh Bhupathi (5) and Leander Paes (7) -- were unchanged while Rohan Bopanna registered a one place advance to be at number 13.In the doubles team rankings, Paes and Bhupathi sustained to be world number two pair but Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi have slipped to sixth from fifth.

Britain beat Pakistan

Jonathan Clarke struck twice as Britain overcome Pakistan 3-2 to put their campaign back on track while South Korea and New Zealand played out a 2-2 draw in their Sultan Azlan Shah Cup match on Sunday. Clarke’s twin strikes gave Britain the much-needed win after the 1-3 loss to India on Friday. Pakistan and Britain now have two wins each from three matches and lead the standings in the round-robin league.

In another match, combined defending champions South Korea were held to a 1-1 draw by New Zealand. Benjamin Collier scored for New Zealand in the 50th minute and South Korea struck back eight minutes later to equalize through a penalty corner by Jang Jong-Hyun. In an amusing contest, Britain took the lead against Pakistan in the eighth minute through Robert Moore as the ball crossed the line despite Waqas Akbar making a worried attempt to clear it.

Pakistan came close to scoring in the 24th minute but Shakeel Abbasi missed a sitter. They got the equalizer four minutes before half-time as Sohail Abbas sounded the boards with a long drag-flick to goalkeeper Nicholas Brothers. Clarke put Britain ahead again in the 39th minute even as Pakistan's Rehan Butt unsuccessful to score two minutes later after Adam Dixon brought off a goal-line save.

Rudi Krol keen to coach Indian football team

Former Dutch captain Rudi Krol, a veteran of two World Cup finals, is eager to coach the Indian football team, soccer officials say. The 62-year-old is one of the several coaches who have applied for the post of chief coach, which is unfilled after the resignation of Bob Houghton. A top All India Football Federation official told that Krol's CV was among more than a few they have received from foreign coaches in the last two weeks.

AIFF secretary Kushal Das, however, refused to expose names but definite that some former national coaches have applied."It is not probable to reveal the names. But some international coaches, who have the experience of coaching international sides have applied," Das told. Krol, a former Dutch defender, played in 1974 and captained the side in the 1978 World Cup.




Krol played 83 times for Holland between 1969-83, scoring four goals. He was the star player for the Dutch team in the 1978 World Cup in Argentina and also featured in the FIFA All Star team. In 1979, Krol completed third in the European Footballer of the Year contest behind the winner Kevin Keegan of England and Germany's Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.

He spent most of his club career at Ajax Amsterdam and turned out for Italian club Napoli from 1980-84.As a manager, he was in charge of the Egyptian national team in 1996 and was assistant manager of the Netherlands, under Louis van Gaal. He is presently in charge of top South African club side Orlando Pirates.

Sania-Elena reaches quarter final

Sania Mirza and her Russian partner Elena Vesnina nonstop their good run at the Madrid Open, storming into the quarter-finals of the event.The unseeded Indo-Russian combination recorded a 6-3 7-5 win over the Russian-Australian pair of Nadia Petrova and Anastasia Rodionova in the second round of the euro 3,500,000 clay court event.

Sania and Elena changed all the three break chances that came their way in the first set and two of four in the second to record the win in one hour and 27 minutes. They now have a hard job at hand as they face second seeds Kveta Peschke of Czech Republic and Katarina Serbotnik of Slovania in the last-eight round. The second seeds saw off the challenge of Spanish team of Lourdes Lino Dominguez and Laura Pous-Tio 6-2 1-6 10-3 in their second round clash of the WTA Premier event.

Indian ODI squad selection on May 13

The Indian squad for the one-day series and a Twenty20 match against the West Indies in the latter's backyard will be picked on May 13 in Chennai."The selection panel is to meet at Chennai on May 13 to choose the team," Cricket Board sources told on Wednesday. The meeting will be held a day after Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni would have led Chennai Super Kings against the Delhi Daredevils at home.

Super Kings' next fixture is against Kochi Tuskers Kerala, also at the M A Chidambaram Stadium, on May 18.The Indian squad, which is scheduled to leave for the Caribbean on June 1, will start the tour with a Twenty20 international against the West Indies at the Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain in Trinidad on June 4.The five ODIs follow the end of the one-off Twenty20 game at the Queen's Park Oval (June 6 and 8), Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in North Sound, Antigua (June 11 and 13) and Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica (June 16).

After the conclusion of the limited-overs games, India will take on the West Indies in a three-match Test rubber from June 20-July 10 with the matches scheduled at the Sabina Park, Kington Oval in Bridgetown (Barbados) and Windsor Park in Roseau, Dominica. The team for the Test series would be picked later.

Somdev back to 70

Indian tennis ace Somdev Devvarman gained a place to be back to career-best singles ranking of 70 while Sania Mirza slipped a step to 77 in the latest charts released on Monday. Somdev’s quarterfinal appearance in the Serbia Open in Belgrade last week helped him get better his standing in the ATP singles chart. The Commonwealth and Asian Games gold medallist Somdev had upstaged world number 26 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the second round in Belgrade.

Somdev had broken into top-100 early this year. Sania slipped a place in the WTA singles charts though her position in doubles rankings remained unmoved on 29.Meanwhile in the men's doubles rankings, Mahesh Bhupathi (5) and Leander Paes (7) were static in the ATP charts. Indian Davis Cupper and doubles specialist Rohan Bopanna dropped two places to be at 14 with 3960 points.

Sania loses in Madrid Open first round

Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza was sent packing from the Madrid open following a first-round defeat to Russia's Elena Vesnina. Sania succumbed 4-6 3-6 in a match that lasted for over an hour without posing any serious threat to her doubles partner.


The Hyderabadi, who looked nervous with her first serve, dedicated seven double faults. Sania, however, remains in disputation for the doubles event of the euro 3,500,000 tournament as she gears up to face eighth-seeded Czech pair of Iveta Benesova and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, with Vesnina.