Sports News Highlights May 18: Verstappen Clinches Pole At Imola GP; Nikhat Wins Gold In Astana

Sports World Higlights, May 18, 2024:

Was a thrilling day for sports fans! In cricket, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru did the unthinkable and won their sixth match on the bounce by defeating Chennai Super Kings to qualify for the playoffs of the IPL 2024. In badminton action, the Indian shuttlers Satwik-Chirag went into the finals of the Thailand open while Ashwini-Tanisha crashed out. Additionally, Football fans saw Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen finishing their campaign without a loss after the final day win over Augsburg. World champion Nikhat Zareen returned from the Elorda Cup with a gold medal. Minakshi also won a gold as India bagged 12 medals at the boxing event in Astana. Thank you for following us. Check out the highlights of all the sporting action on Saturday, May 18, 2024 here

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic will make his trip to Geneva before Roland Garros to gain confidence. Whereas in Rome, Nicholas Jarry is full on emitting confidence as he makes his first Masters 1000 final.

Adam Armstrong's brace and William Smallbone's 49th minute goal helped the Saints beat West Brom 3-1 at the St. Mary's Stadium and book their play-off final ticket.

Andy Murray will face Germany's Yannick Hanfmann in the Round of 32 clash at the Geneva Open. The winner will take on the tournament's latest wildcard entrant, Novak Djokovic.

The duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will take on Chinese Taipei's Lu Ming-Che and Tang Kai-Wei in the semis.

Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponappa, in their semis, will face Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai.

Southampton will face Leeds United for a spot in next year's English Premier League after beating West Brom 3-1 in the second leg of their Championship playoff on Friday.

Southampton and Leeds will meet at Wembley on May 26 to decide who joins the already-promoted Leicester City and Ipswich Town in the top flight.

The Saints progressed 3-1 on aggregate after a goalless first-leg at the Hawthorns last Sunday. (AP)

The dethroned Italian champions Napoli ended in a 2-2 draw at Fiorentina in Serie A, dashing their hopes of playing European football next season. Napoli took the lead in the eighth minute through defender Amir Rrahmani, who nodded home a corner by Matteo Politano.

"As a batter, I know I didn't live up to the standard. But, after playing for all these years, I know that if I overthink, I won't play well," Rohit said on JioCinema Match Centre Live.

India's skipper Rohit Sharma admitted that he could not match the expected batting standards in the 2024 IPL season but instead of indulging in over-thinking, he must stay in the right zone and keep working on his flaws after Mumbai Indians ended the season with 10th place in the points table.

The majority of the Indian players along with the jumbo support staff will be flying out to New York on May 25, with the rest leaving for the T20 World Cup only after the May 26 IPL final.

Earlier, the members of teams failing to qualify for the play-offs were supposed to leave for New York on May 21, two days after the final league game of the IPL on May 19 but it has since been learnt that there has been some change in plans and now the first batch will leave on May 25.

"The likes of skipper Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant, Arshdeep Singh, Axar Patel are some of the players along with support staff who are expected to leave on May 25," a BCCI source told PTI on the condition of anonymity.

It has been confirmed that the longest-serving player of Arsenal, Mohamed Elneny will leave after the Gunners' final game of the season. He joined the club in 2016 and played 161 games under three managers including Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta.

India's star men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty cruised to the final round of Thailand Open badminton tournament with an easy straight-game win over Lu Ming-Che and Tang Kai-Wei of Chinese Taipei. The Asian Games gold medallists Satwik and Chirag finished the match in just 35 minutes to beat their opponents 21-11 21-12.

Sift Kaur Samra won her third women's 50m rifle 3 positions competition while Niraj Kumar emerged victorious in the men's event for a second time on the penultimate day of the Olympic Selection Trial (OST) 3 and 4 here on Saturday.

Sift shot 461.3 in the women's 3P trial 4 final to edge out Nischal by a point. Ashi Chouksey was third with 448.1. Shriyanka Sadangi and Anjum Moudgil were fourth and fifth respectively in the five-woman field. (PTI)

Injury has forced Harry Kane to miss Bayern Munich's final game of the Bundesliga 2023-24 season as he is leaving Germany to undergo treatment on a back problem. He has scored 36 league goals in his maiden campaign in Bavaria. However, unfortunately, he will finish yet another season without trophy as the Bayer Leverkusen have clinched their first top-flight title this season.

Reigning world champion Nikhat Zareen and Minakshi clinched a gold each as the Indian team concluded their Elorda Cup campaign with a best-ever tally of a whopping 12 medals.

Besides Nikhat and Minakshi's gold medals, Indian boxers won two silver and eight bronze to better their last edition's record of five medals.

(PTI)

Xavi Hernández on Saturday denied a slew of reports in Spanish media outlets that Barcelona's leadership is considering firing the coach for saying that the club's poor finances will impede it from competing with Real Madrid.

“The club has transmitted to me that I should stay calm and continue working with the same motivation and commitment. Nothing has changed,” Xavi said at a pregame news conference.

RCB Playing XI: Faf du Plessis(c), Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Rajat Patidar, Cameron Green, Mahipal Lomror, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Karn Sharma, Yash Dayal, Lockie Ferguson, Mohammed Siraj

CSK Playing XI: Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad(c), Daryl Mitchell, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (wk), Mitchell Santner, Shardul Thakur, Tushar Deshpande, Simarjeet Singh, Maheesh Theekshana

Scotland (Playing XI): Ollie Hairs, Michael Jones, Charlie Tear, Richie Berrington(c), Matthew Cross(w), Michael Leask, Mark Watt, Chris Greaves, Christopher Sole, Gavin Main, Bradley Currie

Netherlands (Playing XI): Vikramjit Singh, Max ODowd, Michael Levitt, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Scott Edwards(w/c), Teja Nidamanuru, Aryan Dutt, Daniel Doram, Paul van Meekeren, Vivian Kingma, Logan van Beek

Indian Grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram kept himself in joint lead after a draw with Iranian Amin Tabatabaei in the fourth round of Sharjah Masters chess tournament. (PTI)

Jaismine Lamboria will compete in the second Olympic boxing qualifiers in Thailand beginning May 24 after India was forced to surrender the women's 57kg category quota for the Paris Games owing to holder Parveen Hooda's international suspension.

Parveen was suspended for three whereabout failures in 12 months. (PTI)

In one of the most stunning turnarounds in IPL history, RCB have made it to the playoffs despite spending the majority of the season at the bottom of the table.

With a 27-run win over CSK, they have now gathered six consecutive wins this season and are sure to qualify as the fourth best team in the league stage.

CSK on the hand stand eliminated despite a strong start to the season.

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