Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis win WTA Finals, 9th title of the year

Kuala Lumpur, Jan 9: BWF World Championships defending champion PV Sindhu on Thursday cruised to the quarterfinals of the ongoing Malaysia Masters after winning a second-round match.

The 24-year-old had the upper hand in the clash and thrashed Japan's Aya Ohori in straight games 21-10, 21-15 that lasted for 34-minute. The world number six will now play in her quarterfinal match on January 10.

Earlier in the day, Saina Nehwal defeated South Korea's An Se Young 25-23, 21-12 in 38 minutes. The first game saw back and forth action between both shuttlers. In the end, Nehwal kept her cool to win the match.

On Wednesday, the 29-year-old had outclassed Belgium's Lianne Tan 21-15, 21-17 to progress to the pre-quarterfinals.

Shuttlers Parupalli Kashyap and Kidambi Srikanth crashed out of the tournament after losing their matches to Japan's Kento Momota and Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei respectively. 

Gibraltar, Jan 28: Young Indian Grand Master R Praggnanandhaa pulled off a huge upset, beating former world champion Veselin Topalov in the sixth round of the 18th Gibraltar chess festival to record his fifth straight win here.

The 14-year-old Chennai lad needed just 33 moves to put it across the Bulgarian. He had started with a loss against compatriot P V Nandhidhaa but since then he has been on a winning spree.

Praggnanandhaa, who recently won the world under-18 title, said: "It was very tough to prepare against him."

He is in second spot on five points with six other players and will take on Chinese GM Wang Hao in the seventh round.

Seventeen-year-old Russian GM Andrey Esipenko jumped to sole lead with 5.5 points with a win over Georgia's Ivan Cheparinov

The Russian player would be unpaired in the seventh round as he decided to take a bye.

A bunch of players including Indians — B Adhiban, K Sasikiran, Shardul Gagare, Karthikeyan Murali, SL Narayanan — are in joint third place with 4.5 points.

Adhiban beat Gabriel Flom, while D Gukesh, the world's second youngest Grand Master ever, defeated Martin Percivaldi to move to four points.

Also winning were Karthikeyan Murali against Qi B Chen and Gagare over France's Maxime Lagarde.

Top-seed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's moderate run continued as he was held to a draw by GM Aryan Chopra.

Lausanne, Mar 25: The World Archery has hailed as a 'brave decision' the International Olympic Committee (IOC) move to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympics until next year due to coronavirus pandemic.

"We commend the conscientious and brave decision taken by Tokyo 2020 and the International Olympic Committee to delay this summer's Games in the face of an unprecedented challenge to humanity," Ugur Erdener, the World Archery president, said in an official statement.

The decision to postpone the Summer Olympics was confirmed by the IOC, on Tuesday, after the organising body for the event and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to reschedule the quadrennial event in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This is not an easy situation, especially for the athletes who had been training hard for Tokyo 2020. I hope that everyone understands why this decision has been made and I urge archers around the world to retain hope and reset for this new timetable," he added.

The IOC has, however, said that the original name of Tokyo 2020 will remain intact irrespective of the fact that it will take place next year.

The Tokyo Olympic Games were slated to be held from July 24 to August 9.