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Newly crowned FIDE World Junior Chess Champion, Divya Deshmukh opened up about his future goals but said that she wants to explore the game right now. Spain great Rafael Nadal said that he will try to be a good partner for Carlos Alcaraz in the forthcoming Paris Olympics 2024.
Read below to learn more about the latest happenings in the sporting world in the last 24 hours.
Football
Former Real Madrid stars Luka Doncic and Sergio Ramos swap jerseys ahead of 2024 NBA Finals Game 4
The Dallas Mavericks finally registered their first win against the Boston Celtics in the 2024 NBA Finals on Friday night at the American Airlines Center. With this win, the Mavericks improved their series record to 3-1 and forced a Game 5, scheduled to be played on Monday night at the TD Garden. Ahead of Game 4, Luka Doncic met Spanish football legend Sergio Ramos and the two former Real Madrid stars swapped jerseys and posed together for a picture. Before the Atlanta Hawks drafted Luka Doncic third overall in the 2018 NBA draft and traded him to the Dallas Mavericks, the 25-year-old Luka Doncic played for the Real Madrid basketball team in Spain.
Lionel Messi scores goal against Guatemala to narrow lead against Cristiano Ronaldo
Argentinian football great Lionel Messi scored twice against Guatemala on Saturday to increase his goal tally and narrow the difference from tally leader, Cristiano Ronaldo. During the match, Argentina captain Messi scored in 107th and 108th goals for the Albiceleste. The goals brought him level to Ali Daei, who is second on the list of most international goal scorers. While Messi and Daei now have 108 goals, Portugal captain Ronaldo leads the charts with 128 goals.
Chess
Right now I just want to explore how much further I can go in chess: World Junior Champion Divya Deshmukh
Newly crowned FIDE World Junior Chess Champion, Divya Deshmukh opened up about her future goals but said that she wants to explore the game right now. Deshmukh told The Indian Express, “I still want to keep my options open. Right now I just want to explore how much further I can go in chess. I’m enjoying the process at the moment.” Deshmukh added, “I honestly don’t believe in having result-based expectations. I tend to lean more towards my personal goals which are focussed on the kind of game play that I have and the strength and the quality of my games.”
Archery
Indian women's archery team gets fifth seed in Olympic qualifiers
The Indian women’s recurve team consisting of Deepika Kumari, Bhajan Kaur, and Ankita Bhakat qualified as fifth seed in the Final Olympic Qualifiers on Friday. They are now two wins away from registering a quota for the Paris global tournament. The Indian team scored a total of 1978 points and finished behind tally toppers China (1996), Japan (1991), Spain (1990), and Chinese Taipei (1982) in the qualifying table. India will start from round 16 in the draw against Ukraine.
Tennis
I will try to be a good partner for Carlos Alcaraz: Rafael Nadal on Paris Olympics 2024
Spain great Rafael Nadal said that he will try to be a good partner for Carlos Alcaraz in the forthcoming Paris Olympics 2024. He said, "I'm going to try to arrive as well prepared as possible. I haven't played doubles for a long time, but Carlos is in a fantastic moment after winning in Paris, so I will try to arrive as best as possible and as prepared as possible to be a good partner for him.” Notably, Nadal has two gold medals at the Olympics, one in singles and one in doubles, which he won in 2016 while partnering with Marc Lopez.
I had to be guarded to just stay sane: Serena Williams opens up on dealing with media attention in young age.
Tennis legend Serena Williams opened up about dealing with media attention as a teenager and said, “In my position and growing up as a teenager and 14, I kind of had to be guarded to just kind of stay sane, and just being in so much press and just doing, everything that I was doing traveling the globe every year." Speaking about the docu-series, she added, "It wasn't like you are on tour and you took a break and you had a couple of years off. It was every week. So it was a grind and it's really cool to see a different side or not a different side, a true side of what happened behind the scenes.”
Sumit Nagal enters Perugia Challenger Semifinals
Indian tennis ace Sumit Nagal continued his brilliant form and entered the semi-final of the ongoing Perugia Challengers on Friday. The sixth-seeded Indian defeated Maks Kasnikowski of Poland in the quarterfinal with a scoreline of 6-4, 7-5. This is Nagal’s eighth consecutive win since the start of the Heilbronn Challenger in Germany. In the semi-final clash, Nagal will be up against the winner of the other quarterfinal clash between the unseeded Bernabé Zapata Miralles of Spain and second seed Laslo Djere of Serbia.
Badminton
HS Prannoy loses in Australia Open 2024
HS Prannoy’s poor form continued ahead of the Paris Olympics when he lost in straight games to Kodai Naraoka. Prannoy was close to Naraoka in the first game but lost 19-21. The Indian badminton star then lost the second round very poorly, with a scoreline of 21-13. With his loss, India’s campaign at the Australian Open ended after Sameer Verma, Aakarshi Kashyap and the mixed doubles pair of Sumeet Reddy and Sikki Reddy faced defeats in their respective clashes.
