Second seed Rei Sakamoto and fifth seed Oliver Crawford advanced to the Delhi Open singles semifinals on Friday in New Delhi, setting up a mouthwatering meeting as two unseeded players contest the other last-four spot. Sakamoto, a former junior world No. 1 and the 2024 Australian Open boys’ singles champion, recovered from a set down to beat sixth seed Federico Cina of Italy 6-7(7) 6-3 6-2. Crawford survived an all-British battle with Jay Clarke, saving a match point late in the second set before winning 3-6 7-5 6-3; after the match he said, “Jay is one of my good mates. We have played for the same country… so I knew it was going to be a battle. I was lucky to get away in the second, and then I thought the level was very high from both ends in the third, and just very pleased to get over the line.” The other singles semi pits Greece’s Stefanos Sakellaridis, who beat eighth seed Rio Noguchi 6-0 6-3, against Britain’s Felix Gill, who came through 4-6 6-3 6-4 against Belgium’s Michael Geerts.
The doubles draw kept alive the hope of an Indian winner as top seeds Siddhanth Banthia and Alexander Donski reached the last four with a 6-3 6-4 victory over wildcards Divij Sharan and Karan Singh. Second seeds Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha and Pruchya Isaro, fresh from their Chennai Open title last week, extended their winning run with a 6-2 6-2 defeat of Luca Castelnuovo and Rio Noguchi to also advance to the semifinals.
Some of India’s best race walkers will compete in newly introduced 21km (half marathon) and 42km (full marathon) senior events at the Indian Open Race Walk Competition, which begins Saturday at Chandigarh’s Sukhna Lake. Until the 2025 season the standard sanctioned distances were 20km and 35km; the new programme features the men’s 21km as the main attraction. Four Paris Olympians — Akshdeep Singh, Paramjeet Singh Bisht, Suraj Panwar and Vikash Singh — are entered and will face Servin Sebastain, who dominated the 2025 season and represented India at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. Germany’s Frederick Weigel is the lone foreign athlete in the men’s 21km. The men’s 42km field is said to be strong, while the women’s full marathon walk will see Olympian Priyanka Goswami challenge Payal (Uttarakhand) and Manju (Punjab); nine athletes have entered the women’s 42km. The Athletics Federation of India has invited three foreign race-walk judges, including one from Malaysia, to officiate the two-day event.
The Pakistan cricket team will tour Bangladesh next month for a three-match One-Day International series as part of preparations for the 2027 50-over World Cup, the Pakistan Cricket Board announced on Friday. The ODIs are scheduled for March 11, 13 and 15 at Dhaka’s Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium. Pakistan last toured Bangladesh in July 2025 for a T20 series they lost, and are also due to visit this year for a two-Test series that forms part of the ICC World Test Championship. The 2027 ODI World Cup will be jointly hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia in October and November. (PTI)
Original Source: https://theshillongtimes.com/2026/02/21/sports-snippets-1020/
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Publish Date: 2026-02-21 04:34:00
