Sports - Current Affairs for July, 2017

Ace Indian Shuttler H S Prannoy won the 2017 Yonex US Open Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament title. It was his third grand prix gold title of badminton.

In the final match held at Anaheim, California, Prannoy defeated his compatriot Parupalli Kashyap by 21-15, 20-22, 21-12.

In the women’s singles category of the tournament, Aya Ohori of Japan won the final by defeating Michelle Li of Canada.

It was the second time in this season that two Indians fought for title at international badminton.

Earlier in April 2017, K Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth had played against each other in finals of Singapore Open with Sai Praneeth winning his maiden Super Series title.

The 2017 US Open Grand Prix Gold, was the eleventh Grand Prix’s badminton tournament of the 2017 BWF Grand Prix and overall eight Grand Prix Gold title of 2017 BWF Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament.

England’s women’s cricket team won 2017 ICC World Cup title by defeating India by 9 runs at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.

It was England’s fourth Women’s World Cup title.

Besides the inaugural edition in 1973, England had won the World Cup in 1993 and 2009 as well. In this edition of World Cup, Tammy Beaumont of England was awarded Player of the Series title.

She had made most runs (410) in the tournament.

Dane van Niekerk of South Africa took most wickets (15) in the tournament. The 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup was the eleventh edition of the Cup since 1973, and the third to be held in England after 1973 and 1993 tournaments.

Notably, it was India’s second appearance in the Women’s World Cup final, having lost to Australia in 2005.

The Women’s Cricket World Cup is the oldest and most prestigious international women’s cricket tournament currently organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC).

The first edition was held in England in 1973. To date, eleven World Cups have been played in five different countries, with India and England having hosted the for record three times.

Australia has won the women’s cricket world Cup for record six times (1978, 1982, 1988, 1997, 2005, 2013) followed by England (four titles- 1973, 1993, 2009, 2017) and New Zealand (one title- 2000).

Following a recommendation from India coach Ravi Shastri, Bharat Arun has been named the side’s bowling coach.

The appointment came after a meeting between Shastri and a four-member BCCI committee, where it was also decided that Sanjay Bangar will be the team’s assistant coach.

The appointments mean Shastri will work with the same set of coaches - including fielding coach R Sridhar - who assisted him in his earlier tenure as team director.

India’s support staff have all been given two-year contracts, until the end of the 2019 World Cup.

Arun, as a result, will now have to give up his coaching roles in the IPL and the Tamil Nadu Premier League in accordance with the new conflict-of-interest guidelines.

Arun, who has been a bowling coach with Royal Challengers Bangalore since 2015, was recently named coach of VB Thiruvallur Veerans in the TNPL.

Shastri also confirmed that Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan will be on board as consultants.

The committee comprising BCCI CEO Rahul Johri (convener), acting board president CK Khanna, acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary, and Diana Edulji, member of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), was created to resolve the ambiguity over the roles of Dravid and Zaheer.

While the Bcci’s press release on July 11 stated that they were “appointed” overseas Test batting consultant and bowling consultant respectively, CoA chairman Vinod Rai said those were only recommendations that needed action from the CoA “in consultation with the head coach”.

Sourav Ganguly, a member of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) that appointed Shastri, Dravid and Zaheer, was recently quoted as saying that Zaheer was contracted for 150 days a year.

Australia’s Patrick Farhart and Shankar Basu also retained their positions as physio and trainer respectively, for the same two-year period until the conclusion of the 2019 World Cup.

Garbine Muguruza stormed to her first Wimbledon title and shattered Venus Williams’ history bid with a majestic 7-5, 6-0 victory in final.

Muguruza overwhelmed Williams with a supreme display of power hitting in 77 minutes on Centre Court to become only the second Spanish woman to win Wimbledon.

The Brazilian-Polish men’s doubles pair of Marcelo Melo and Lukasz Kubot took a marathon five sets to overcome Austrian-Croatian pair of Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic in the final of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships.

Russian women’s doubles pair of Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina beat Chan Hao-ching and Monica Niculescu in the final of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London.

This victory was the first for Russian tennis players at Wimbledon, while Vesnina made her way to the Wimbledon final in pairs for the third time in her career, Makarova did it for the second.

India’s Sundar Singh Gurjar (21) won gold medal in the men’s javelin throw event at World Para Athletics Championships held in London, United Kingdom.

In the F46 category, Sundar recorded his personal best effort of 60.36m ahead of Dinesh Priyantha Herath (Sri Lanka) who emerged second with 57.93m, followed by defending champion Guo Chunliang (China) with 56.14m.

Sundar Singh Gurjar: Know More

- Sundar Singh Gurjar hails from the Karauli district in Rajasthan. Till November 2015, he was competing in General Category.

- But he had lost his left hand in an accident.

- After the accident, he started participating in para-athlete competitions.

- Sundar was not able to participate in the F46 javelin throw category at the 2016 Rio Paralympics after he was disqualified.

- But at the same event, India’s Devendra Jhajharia had won the gold medal.

- In February 2017, at 8th Fazza IPC Athletics Grand Prix held in Dubai, Sundar had won three gold medals, one each in javelin throw, shot put and discus throw.

- He set a world record at the 16th Para Athletics National Championship in Panchkula holding three gold medals in three events at one time.

- Country: India

- Sport: Athletics

- Event(s): Javelin /Discus throw /Shot put

- Coached by: R. D. Singh / Mahaveer Prasad Saini

Roger Federer won a record eighth Wimbledon title and became the tournament's oldest champion on 16th July 2017 with a straight-sets victory over injury-hit Marin Cilic.

Federer claimed his 19th Grand Slam title 6-3, 6-1, 6-4 and at 35 is Wimbledon's oldest men's winner of the modern era, succeeding Arthur Ashe, who was almost 32 when he won in 1976.

However, the Swiss superstar's 11th Wimbledon final, and 29th at the majors, will also be remembered.

On 16th July, he broke his tie with Sampras and the 19th-century player William Renshaw by becoming the first man to win eight Wimbledon singles titles. (Martina Navratilova won the women’s event nine times.)

That seventh championship pulled Federer ahead of Pete Sampras and William Renshaw in what's still officially called Gentlemen's Singles.

Sampras won all but one of his in the 1990s.

Renshaw won each of his in the 1880s, back in the days when the previous year's champion advanced automatically to the final and therefore was able to successfully defend a title with one victory.

Roger Federer: Know More

• Roger Federer is a Swiss professional tennis player who is currently ranked world No. 3 by the Association of Tennis Professionals.
• Federer turned professional in 1998 and was continuously ranked in the top 10 from October 2002 to November 2016.
• Born: 8 August 1981, Basel, Switzerland
• Height: 1.85 m

Indian captain Mithali Raj (34) scripted history by becoming first player in the history of women’s ODI cricket to score more than 6000 career runs.

She also became all-time leading run-getter in women’s ODI. She achieved the record feat against Australia in the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 match at Bristol.

She broke previous record of Charlotte Edwards (5992) in 164 innings – 16 less than Charlotte. Mithali Raj Mithali had made her ODI debut at the age of 16 against Ireland in June 1999 at Milton Keynes and scored unbeaten 114 runs.

So far, Mithali has scored 6028 runs with the help of 5 centuries and 49 half-centuries.

During the 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup, she had created record of scoring seven consecutive fifties in women’s ODIs.

Apart from this, she has also scored 49 ODI half-centuries, highest by any woman cricketer.

She is often called the Sachin Tendulkar of Indian women’s cricket.

India’s Harinder Pal Sandhu beat Rhys Dowling of Australia 11-8 12-10 11-4 in the final to win the South Australian Open squash title here today.

After winning the first game comfortably, Sandhu was down 1-7 as the Australian fought back strongly.

However, Sandhu mounted a comeback to win the game.

The third game was a no-contest as the Indian, a former national champion, shut out Dowling’s challenge to wrap up the title win in the PSA World Tour event.

Sandhu had upset top seed Piedro Schweertman of the Netherlands 11-9 14-12 7-11 11-9 in the semifinal.

He won the Aussie PSA tournament here for the first time.

It is Sandhu’s eighth title at the PSA level and the third this season after winning two in Malaysia in May.

He had reached the quarterfinals of the Asian Individual Squash Championship in Chennai in April.