Maria Sharapova's claycourt season got off to a poor start on Tuesday as she lost in three sets to Caroline Garcia in the first round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart.
The ruthless American needed less than an hour to defeat Sharapova 6-1, 6-1 and notch her 19th consecutive win over the Russian in what some charitably dub a "rivalry."
The fourth seeded Indian pair of Harsh Mankad and Ashutosh Singh lost to the top seeded Australian pair of Adam Feeney and Robert Smeets 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-10, in the final of the Euro 30,000 ATP Challenger grasscourt tournament in Manchester.
Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi squandered three match-points in the Super tie-break and crashed out of Open Sud de France, losing a tightly contested match to Ross Hutchins and Stephen Huss, in Montpellier, France, on Thursday. The top seeded Indo-Belarusian pair lost 6-3, 3-6, 12-14 to the unseeded British-Australian pair in the quarter-finals in 88 minutes.
Parupalli Kashyap shocked World No 1 Chen Long to make it to the semi-final of the Indonesia Super Series Premier badminton tournament.
Saina Nehwal bagged her first title of the year, clinching the Swiss Open Grand Prix gold trophy with a straight-games victory over Ji Hyun Sung of Korea in the final in Switzerland on Sunday.
Ajay Jayaram emerged as the lone survivor at the Korea Open after nothing up a convincing straight-game win over China's Huang Yuxiang to advance to the quarter-finals of men's singles of the Super Series event, in Seoul, on Thursday.
India's P V Sindhu secured a straight-game win over Chinese Taipei's Tai Tzu Ying to reach the quarter-finals of the Denmark Open in Odense on Friday.
Jerome Barson, who was a passenger in a sedan that collided with the SUV that Venus Williams was driving, died 13 days after the accident.
The Indo-Czech pair beat second seeds Paul Hanley and Kevin Ullyett in a grueling semi-final at the Dubai Open.
PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth notched up contrasting wins to progress to the Round of 16, but World No. 11 H S Prannoy suffered a shock defeat to unheralded Brazilian Ygor Coelho to bow out of the World Championship.
Kidambi Srikanth might be inching towards the coveted World No 1 ranking after his record-equalling Super Series win in Paris but he says he does not want to lose sleep over chasing it.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
P V Sindhu advanced into the women's singles final
The Indian qualifier, who savoured his best ever performance on the ATP World Tour, went down fighting 4-6, 6-4, 3-6 against the world number 45 from South Africa in the quarter-finals played on Friday.
Nick Kyrgios lost his temper and blew a two-set lead but still managed to win a five-set thriller to storm into the fourth round of the Australian Open with a 10-8 victory over Karen Khachanov in the super tiebreaker on Saturday. The 24-year-old Australian raged at the umpire, raged at himself and raged at his box but ultimately prevailed 6-2, 7-6(5), 6-7(6), 6-7(7), 7-6(8) in the longest match of his career to set up a last-16 date with 19-times Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal.
But the Indian mixed doubles pair of Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan suffered a close 18-21, 21-10, 22-24, loss to Russian pair of Evgenij Dremin and Evgenia Dimova, while another pair of Tarun Kona and Sikki N Reddy too went down 13-21, 17-21 against Liao Min Chun and Chen Hsiao Huan of Chinese Taipei.
Dominic Thiem will watch a treasured home movie of his recent win over Novak Djokovic at the season-ending ATP Tour Finals as he seeks inspiration to take down the defending champion Serb in the Australian Open decider.
Defending champion Saina Nehwal overcame an opening game deficit to reach the semifinal of the Indonesian Open badminton tournament and stay on course for back-to-back Super Series title in Jakarta on Friday.
The Delhi lad lost in the under-14 as well as under-16 final at the Super Series Junior Tennis Tournament.
Top seed K Srikanth advanced to the semi-finals in the men's singles but P V Sindhu suffered heartbreak as she bowed out of the women's singles, at the US $120,000 Indonesia Masters Grand Prix Gold tournament, in Malang, on Friday.
Images from Day 3 of the Australian Open in Melbourne on Wednesday
Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea suffered first round defeat for the second time in a row, crashing out of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday
Rio Olympics silver medallist P V Sindhu will look to shrug off the disappointment of last week's second round exit at Denmark Open and eye her maiden Super Series women's singles title when she competes at the French Open this week. The sixth seeded Indian, who had lost to Japan's Sayaka Sato in second round at Odense, will open her campaign against Hong Kong's Yip Pui Yin at Stade Pierre de Coubertin.
Kashyap, a Commonwealth Games champion, was trailing 8-14 in the third game when he chose to retire after pulling his calf muscle.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Monday
Bopanna lost just four points on his serve during the entire match as the top seeded Indians produced a dominating 6-3, 6-4 win over British pair of Luke Bambridge and Jonny O'Maara.
PV Sindhu had a below-par outing as Japan's Akene Yamaguchi beat the World Championship silver medallist 21-14, 21-9 in a thoroughly one-sided semi-final of the French Open Super Series, in Paris, on Saturday.
Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal cruised into the quarter-finals with a straight games win, but Chetan Anand bit the dust in the singles event of the Malaysian Super Series tournament in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.
Top seeds Sania and her Brazilian partner Bruno Soares edged past Abigail Spears and Santiago Gonzalez.
Indian challenge ended at the ATP Paris Masters when Rohan Bopanna and his French partner Edourad Roger-Vasselin lost their quarter-final against Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo.
Congratulate Saina Nehwal on her success at Singapore.
Star Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal entered the second round of women's singles with a comfortable victory but P V Sindhu suffered an upset defeat in the opening round to crash out of the US $750,000 Australian Open Super Series badminton tournament in Sydney on Wednesday. In men's singles, India's Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma made the second round with contrasting victories, but it was curtains for qualifier R M V Gurusaidutt as he failed to cross the first round hurdle. Saina, who had won the Australian Open title in 2014, hardly broke a sweat in her opening round game as she outplayed Joy Lai of Australia with a dominating 21-10 21-14 win in just 29 minutes. The seventh seeded Indian will clash with Malaysia's Jin Wei Goh in the second round. However, World No. 10 Sindhu was stunned by South Korea's Kim Hyo Min, ranked 40th in the world, 15-21 19-21 after a 55-minute battle.
Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu lost in straight games to Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in the summit clash of the $ 350,000 Thailand Open World Tour Super 500 badminton tournament, in Bangkok, on Sunday.
In this series, we bring you your weekly shot of wisdom from super achievers.
The Indian doubles specialist and his Romanian partner defeated the Scottish-Canadian team 2-6, 6-1, 10-3 in the opening round of the US $1,753,020 hard-court event.
India's Kidambi Srikanth registered a hard-fought victory to enter the semi-finals of the men's singles at the Singapore Super Series, even as P V Sindhu and B Sai Praneeth lost in straight games.
Kidambi Srikanth continued his fine form to enter the men's singles semi-finals but Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu bowed out of the Australian Open Super Series badminton tournament in Sydney, on Friday.
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