India file

Davis Cup tie on clayNEW DELHI: India, who take on Italy in their Davis Cup World Group first round at the northwest city of Genoa, will pla...

Davis Cup tie on clay

NEW DELHI: India, who take on Italy in their Davis Cup World Group first round at the northwest city of Genoa, will play the tie on slow red clay in April.

A communication to this effect was received by the All India Tennis Association (AITA) from their Italian counterparts, the Indian Davis Cup committee chairman, Anil Khanna said.

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India had placed a suggestion that the number of seeded countries in the 16-member World

Group be reduced from eight to four and the AITA had formally written to all countries, Khanna, who attended the Davis Cup committee meeting at Gothenberg during the November US-Sweden Cup final said.

Natu badminton

PUNE: Former national champion Deepankar Bhattacharjee of Assam and reigning national champion Manju Shakanwar of Delhi were given the pride of place in the men’s and women’s section respectively of the Rs 1 lakh fourth edition of Natu Memorial All-India Badminton Championship which gets underway at Western India Enterprise Complex here tomorrow.

National champion P Gopi Chand of Andhra Pradesh and national women’s runner-up Aparna Popat of Air-India have opted out of the meet.

Patel wins

CALCUTTA: Maharashtra’s Nalin Patel notched up a break of 165 in his 10th visit to defeat Bihar’s Mumtaz Ali 876-250 in his Group E league match of the 64th National Billiards Championship being played at the Calcutta Club here. Manoj Kothari too had a fairly easy time against Delhi’s Anuj Uppal in Group G. Kothari, playing in the familiar surroundings, amassed 876 points as against Uppal’s 333. Sonic Multani of Gujarat failed to turn up for his match against M Srinivas Rao of Andhra Pradesh.

IHF observers

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CHENNAI: The four-Test series between India and Germany, set to take off at the Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium here on January 5, will have four Olympians as selectors.

IHF secretary K Jothikumaran said that president and chairman of selection committee K P S Gill has named P Krishnamurthy, Joaquim Carvalho, Ajitpal Singh and Zafar Iqbal as observers for the Chennai, Bangalore, Amritsar and New Delhi Tests respectively.