The Hindu : Sport / Golf : Basad dethrones Digvijay Singh

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Thursday, Apr 28, 2005

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Sport - Golf

Basad dethrones Digvijay Singh

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Without a title on the Indian Tour since the 1998-99 season, veteran Kolkata-pro Basad Ali needs no reminding that his best is firmly behind him. But at the Delhi Golf Club course here on Wednesday, the 47-year-old produced a round good enough to end an erratic Digvijay Singh's title-defence in the all-India SRF matchplay golf championship.

Basad knocked out fourth-seeded Digvijay six and four after the latter drove into the bushes on the 14th and gave up. Basad, who had scored over Ali Sher on Tuesday, now plays 13th seed Sanjay Gupta for a place in the quarterfinals.

Besides Digvijay, the other seeds to join the casualty list were Feroz Ali and Ranjit Singh, seeded 10 and 11. Former champion and fifth seed Vijay Kumar withdrew due to indisposition. Meanwhile, Tuesday's hero Karan Bindra came a cropper against Mohammad Salim.

Only seven seeds left

After two days of play, favourite Mukesh Kumar is the only surviving seed from the top-five bracket. In all, only seven out of 16 seeds made it to the pre-quarterfinals.

But the most unexpected pre-quarterfinalist of the day was indeed Basad. He birdied four holes, found the par putts when he needed to while Digvijay, who won the Airtel Masters at Gurgaon last week, made things easier for his rival by hitting all over.

"My putting improved after I started using a new putter some time back," said Basad but quickly pointed out, "I did not expect Digvijay to play like this. He just did not play well today."

Digvijay agreed. "My swinging was not good today. I was not getting into the mood of the game. But Basad played really well, he looked very confident."

The results (second round, prefix denotes seeding): 1-Mukesh Kumar bt Dinesh Kumar 2 and 1; Randhir Ghotra bt Raju Ali 3 and 2; 8-Arjun Singh bt Pappan 4 and 3; 9-Harinder Gupta bt Bhoop Singh 2 up; Basad Ali bt 4-Digvijay Singh 6 and 4; 13-Sanjay Gupta bt Vinod Kumar 1 up; Gast Ram received a walkover from 5-Vijay Kumar; 12-Yusuf Ali bt Sujjan Singh 3 and 2; Mohammad Salim bt Karan Bindra 5 and 3; Uttam Singh Mundy bt Vivek Bhandari 1 up; 7-S. S. P. Chourasia bt Mohammad Islam 4 and 3; Shamim Khan bt 10-Feroz Ali 2 up; Nabin Mondal bt Balbir Verma 4 and 2; Vishal Singh bt Sachin Nigade 2 and 1; 6-Rafick Ali bt Jumman 1 up; Ajay Gupta bt 11-Ranjit Singh 1 up.

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