SPORT 2008

Tennis

Australian open

Women’s singles: Final: 5-Maria Sharapova (Rus) bt 4-Ana Ivanovic (Srb) Men’s doubles: Final: 8-Jonathan Erlich / Andy Ram (Isr) bt 7-Arnaud Clement / Michael Llodra (Fra) Boys’ singles: Final: 5-Bernard Tomic (Aus) bt 10-Yang Tsung-hua (Tai) Girls’ singles: Final: 14-Arantxa Rus (Ned) bt Jessica Moore (Aus)

US open

The Cara Black-Leander Paes pair wins the mixed doubles of the US Open tennis championship in New York.India’s Leander Paes combined with Zimbabwe’s Cara Black to beat Britain’s Jamie Murray and American Liezel Huber 7-6(6), 6-4 in the mixed doubles final at the US Open

Men’s singles: Semifinals: 6-Andy Murray (GBr) bt 1-Rafael Nadal (Esp)

Williams, who also won the U.S. Open in 1999 and 2002, is enjoying a revival in her game as she stormed through all seven rounds at Flushing Meadows without dropping a set en route to posting her fourth singles title of 2008

Women’s singles: Final: 4-Serena Williams (U.S.) bt 2-Jelena Jankovic (Srb) 6-4, 7-5. Doubles: Final: 1-Cara Black (Zim) & Liezel Huber (U.S.) bt. 10-Lisa Raymond (U.S.) & Samantha Stosur (Aus)

Champions Invitational (round-robin): Men’s singles: Pat Cash (Aus) bt Mats Wilander (Swe)

Junior singles: Boys’ final: 3-Grigor Dimitrov (Bul) bt Devin Britton (U.S.) 6-4, 6-3. Girls’ final: CoCo Vandeweghe (U.S.) bt Gabriela Paz Franco (Ven)

Badminton

Anand Pawar, the 21-year-old trainee of Tata- Padukone Badminton Academy, became the second Indian player to lift the Austrian Open men’s singles title at Vienna on Saturday. The late Syed Modi had won it 1984.Anand Pawar triumphs in the Portugese international badminton championship.Chetan Anand wins the Spanish Open badminton championship.

Chetan Anand rounds off a fantastic year for him by wwins the Czech Open badminton tournament.

Chetan Anand becomes the first Indian to win the men’s singles title in a Grand Prix badminton event. He achieved the feat in Germany

Saina Nehwal wins World junior badminton title in Pune.

Criket

Leading first wicket stands in Tests

N. McKenzie - G. Smith, 415, South Africa v Bangladesh, Chittagong, 2008; Vinoo Mankad - P. Roy, 413, India v New Zealand, Chennai, 1956; V. Sehwag – R. Dravid, 410, India v Pakistan, Lahore, 2006; G. Turner – T. Jarvis, 387, New Zealand v West Indies, Georgetown, 1972; W. Lawry – R. Simpson, 382, Australia v West Indies, Bridgetown; 1965. (read under partners, score, teams, venue, year).

India wins the tri-series cricket final against host Australia 2-0.

Indian women’s cricket team wins fourth successive Asia Cup in Colombo

Sachin Tendulkar goes past Brian Lara’s mark—11953 runs—to become the highest run-getter in Tests. He achieves the feat in the second Test against Australia in Mohali

Host India regains the Border-Gavaskar Test Series Trophy defeating Australia 2-0.

Indian boxers Akhil Kumar, Jitender Kumar, A.L. Lakra and Dinesh Kumar win bronze medals at the International Boxing Association’s World Cup in Moscow.

India seals a 1-0 win in the Test series against England, and moves to No. 2 in the ICC Test

Golf

Arjun Atwal wins the Malaysian Open golf championship in Kuala Lumpur.

Trevor Immelman becomes the first South African in 30 years to win the US Masters golf championship in Augusta.

Jeev Milkha Singh wins the Singapore Open golf championship.

Golfer Jyoti Randhawa wins the BILT Open in Noida.

Hockey

India lifts the junior Asia Cup hockey tournament in Hyderabad

Olympics

Abinav Bindra becomes India’s first-ever individual Olympic gold medallist, winning

the 10m air rifle competition at Beijing

Jamaica’s Usain Bolt creates a new World record (9.69 sec) in the men’s 100m final in the Beijing Olympic Games.

Jamaica’s Usain Bolt creates a new World record (9.69 sec) in the men’s 100m final in the Beijing Olympic Games

American swimmer Michael Phelps overtakes Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics, with eight in Beijing

Boxer Vijender Singh wins bronze medal in the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Wrestler Sushil Kumar wins bronze medal in the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Usain Bolt clinches a double winning the 200m in a World record time (19.32s), thereby becoming the first athlete to bag a sprint double since Carl Lewis in 1984.

Chess

Viswanathan Anand wins the World chess championship in Bonn.

Other categories

Britain’s Lewis Hamilton becomes the youngest ever Formula One champion at the age of 23

Gagan Narang equals the World record (600/600 in the preliminaries) to win the men’s 10m air rifle gold in the shooting World Cup finals in Bangkok.

Umadevi wins the women’s National billiards title in Indore.

Pankaj Advani and Vidya Pillai win the men’s and women’s title in the Senior National snooker championship in Indore.

Jeev Milkha Singh wins the Nippon Series JT Cup in Tokyo

Indian boxers Akhil Kumar, Jitender Kumar, A.L. Lakra and Dinesh Kumar win bronze medals at the International Boxing Association’s World Cup in Moscow.

The Indian women’s hockey team wins bronze at the Under-21 Women’s Junior Asia Cup at Kuala Lumpur