Tennis: Bopanna, Qureshi lose in first round

Top seeds and former ATP finalists Rohan Bopanna and Aisam Qureshi bowed out of the US $50,000 ATP Challenger Series in New Delhi after losing in straight sets in the first round on today.

The Indo-Pak pair lost 2-6, 3-6 to the unseeded combination of Prakash Amritraj and Rajeev Ram at the DLTA.

India's Ashutosh Singh and Harsh Mankad beat Alexandre Kudryavtsev of Russia [Images] and Gouichi Motomura of Japan [Images] 7-6 (2), 6-4 in a close contest while the Indo-US duo of Mustafa Ghouse and Brendan Evans progressed after their opponents retired injured.

Ghouse-Evans were 6-7, 6-2 when Japan's Takao Suzuki, partnering Davis Cup teammate Go Soeda, withdrew with a back injury.

In the singles, second seed Gilles Muller of Luxembourg and Australian fifth seed Alun Jones suffered early exits in the Delhi heat.

Muller, who had once reached as high as 59 in the ATP charts, fell 6-7, 6-3, 6-3 to USA's Travis Rettermaier while Jones was upset 7-6, 7-5 by countryman Nick Lindahl.

An ill-tempered Yuki Bhambri squandered chances galore against Australia's Adam Feeney, ranked 925 places above the Indian at 274.

The 15-year-old Bhambri, who entered the tournament with a wildcard, went down 6-4, 3-6, 2-6 to Feeney in contest that lasted for more than two hours.

In another early morning contest, Kuwaiti Mohammad Ghareeb beat Australian Andrew Coelho 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) to advance to the second round.

Third seed Kristian Pless of Denmark and Ukranian qualifier Ilia Marchenko won tough three-setters to set up a second round clash.

Pless overcame Alex Satschko of Germany 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 while Marchenko beat Brazil's Ricardo Melo 3-6, 6-4, 6-0 in the first round.

ICC to share security responsibility with PCB for Champions Trophy LAHORE, May 12 (UNI): Security being a major concern for varioustouring teams in Pakistan, the ICC and the PCB will jointly takethe responsibility to make security arrangements for the upcomingChampions Trophy to be held in major cities of the country inSeptember this year.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Nasim Ashraf, after returning back from Dubai where he attended an important meeting with the ICC executives told mediapersons, "The ICC security delegation will visit Pakistan in the end of current month and will visit the venues for the Champions Trophy." Ashraf, however, maintained that Pakistan will host the Asia Cup as scheduled from June 24 to July 6 and heads of all major cricket boards including the top officials of the ICC would witness the final in Karachi.

"Neither ICC nor Asian Cricket Council (ACC) have any reservations over security in Pakistan and the coming season will be full of cricket," he said.

The PCB chief also exuded confidence that the board's efforts to appoint former Pakistan captain Majid Khan for the ICC cricket committee chairmanship will bring fruitful results.

"Hopefully, Majid will win this honour.

I have talked to chiefs of various boards and signs are bright for Majid.

"The PCB governing board would discuss a thirteen-point agenda including development plan, financial statement and the approval of budget for new financial year in its meeting on May 13.

He further added that the board has also sent a summary to the Prime Minister for construction of a state of the art cricket stadium in Islamabad.