First senior International Badminton title for Anmol Kharb
Sport
6 min read
Emerging Indian badminton talent Anmol Kharb won her career’s first senior International badminton title by winning the 2024 Belgian International Badminton Tournament women's singles title.
The 17-year-old unseeded Anmol Kharb, ranked 222 in the world, defeated world No.80 ranked Denmark’s Amalie Schulz 24-22, 12-21, 21-10 in the final.
The Belgian International Badminton Tournament 2024 was held at Leuven, Belgium, from Wednesday 11 to Saturday 14 September 2024.
Past achievements of Anmol Kharb
At the age of 16, Anmol Kharb won the women’s singles title at the National Badminton Championship 2023.
Anmol played a crucial role in the Indian women’s gold medal-winning effort at Malaysia's 2024 Badminton Asia Team Championships. She defeated higher-ranking Japanese players Natsuki Nidaira and Pornpicha Choeikeewong of Thailand in straight games.
Sweden Blanks India 4-0 in the Davis Cup Tie
The Indian men’s tennis team was beaten 4-0 by the Swedish men’s tennis team in the Davis Cup 2024 World Group I tie. This was the sixth straight loss of the Indian men against the Swedish team in Davis Cup history.
With this loss, the Indian team has been relegated to the World Group I play-off stage for next year’s Davis Cup, while Sweden advanced to the 2025 Qualifiers stage.
The World Group I match between India and Sweden was played on an indoor hard court in Stockholm, Sweden, on September 14 and 15, 2024.
Poor performance from Indian Players
The Indian team was led by non-playing captain Rohit Rajpal.
In the first singles match of the Davis Cup tie, N Sriram Balaji lost to Sweden’s Elias Ymer. In the second singles match, Ramkumar Ramanathan lost to Leo Borg, son of legendary tennis player Bjorn Borg.
In the doubles, Ramkumar Ramanathan and N Sriram Balaji lost to the Swedish pair of
Filip Bergevi-Andre Goransson.
In the last singles match, Siddharth Vishwakarma lost to Elias Ymer. The scheduled fifth singles match was not played.
Past performance of India
India has reached the finals of the Davis Cup thrice—1966, 1974, and 1987. It lost to Sweden in the 1987 final.
The Davis Cup is an annual men’s team championship organised by the International Tennis Federation. It started as the International Lawn Tennis Challenge in 1900 and was later renamed the Davis Cup.
Italy is the current Davis Cup champion, beating Australia in the final.
Neeraj Chopra wins a silver medal at the Diamond League Final
Double olympic medalist Neeraj Chopra failed to win a gold medal at the javelin event of the Diamond League Final 2024 by a mere 1 centimetre. Grenada’s Anderson Peters won the gold medal with a throw of 87.87 meters. Neeraj Chopra, struggling with fitness issues this season due to a groin injury, came second with a best throw of 87.86 meters.
Julian Weber of Germany finished third with a throw of 85.97 meters.
Neeraj Chopra became the first Indian athlete to win a gold medal in the Diamond League when he won the javelin event in the 2022 Diamond League Final.
The Diamond League final marks the end of the annual International athletics season.
The 2024 Diamond League final was held on 14 September 2042 at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels.
Anderson Peters collected the winner cheques of USD 30,000 and a trophy, while Neeraj got USD 12,000 for his second-place finish.
