Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
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Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
We have discussed in the past the Top Ten Sportsperson of the Year, but this year let us do something different and give our version of the top ten performances by a player or team. There are plenty to choose from – Indian cricket team winning the 20-20 World Cup, Indian hockey team winning the Asia Cup, and individual brilliant performances in chess (e.g., Vishy Anand/World Chess Championship), motor sports (e.g., Karun Chandhok, Narian Karthikeyan), tennis, golf, badminton, squash, boxing, shooting and other sports.
We are going to rank a single performance (e.g., victory over a top ranked player in the world) or performance at a single tournament (e.g., World Cup, Asia Cup) and not the performance of a player/team over the entire year.
Give a rank order to your top ten sports performances if you want to do, or rank the top performer and leave the other performances unranked.
We have discussed in the past the Top Ten Sportsperson of the Year, but this year let us do something different and give our version of the top ten performances by a player or team. There are plenty to choose from – Indian cricket team winning the 20-20 World Cup, Indian hockey team winning the Asia Cup, and individual brilliant performances in chess (e.g., Vishy Anand/World Chess Championship), motor sports (e.g., Karun Chandhok, Narian Karthikeyan), tennis, golf, badminton, squash, boxing, shooting and other sports.
We are going to rank a single performance (e.g., victory over a top ranked player in the world) or performance at a single tournament (e.g., World Cup, Asia Cup) and not the performance of a player/team over the entire year.
Give a rank order to your top ten sports performances if you want to do, or rank the top performer and leave the other performances unranked.
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
I realized that it is a hard task to rank the performances of Indian sportsperson unless one has the information about all these performances. I had forgotten what many of the Indian stars had done throughout the year so I tried to compile a list of performances. The list is in no ways complete and I would appreciate our members adding some of the missing memorable performances.
Perhaps we should try to rank the Top Five Performances and not Top ten.
Here is a list that I compiled and you can use it along with your own information to come up with your Top Five.
Archery: Dola Banerjee won the Recurve Women’s Individual Gold Medal at World Cup
Badminton: Indian Junior Badminton team finishes 8th at World Championship
Anup Sridhar defeated world # 16 Muhd Hafiz B. Hashim 21-19 18-21 21-15 in PQF of World Badminton Championship and reached QF where he lost to #1 world ranked player
Anup Sridhar defeated world # 12 Sato Shoji of Japan 20-22 21-16 21-18 in QF of Yonex-Sunrise Badminton Asia Championships and lost in the SF to former #1 player Hidayat Taufik
Billiards: Rupesh Shah – winner of IBSF World Billiards Championship (150 up format)
Pankaj Advani – winner of IBSF World Billiards Championship, Singapore (Timed Format)
Chess: Vishwanathan Anand winning the World Chess Championship
Cricket: India’s 20-20 cricket team winning the 20-20 World Cup
Golf: Jyoti Randhawa finishing second at European PGA Tour tournament Open de España in Madrid, Spain
Hockey: Indian hockey team winning Asia Cup
Motor racing: Narain Karthikeyan A1GP race win at China's Zhuhai International Circuit
Squash: Indian Squash team finishes eighth at World Men's Team Squash Championship
Snooker: Geet Sethi – semifinalist at IBSF World Snooker Championship
Tennis: Indian tennis team (Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna) upsets Croatia and the Czech Republic and loses 1-2 in semifinal to Spain of Hopman Cup tournament
Exploits of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi in doubles and Sania Mirza in singles and doubles are well known to Sports-India members
Volleyball: Indian under-19 Volleyball team tops its pool and then finishes 8th at World Junior Championship
Perhaps we should try to rank the Top Five Performances and not Top ten.
Here is a list that I compiled and you can use it along with your own information to come up with your Top Five.
Archery: Dola Banerjee won the Recurve Women’s Individual Gold Medal at World Cup
Badminton: Indian Junior Badminton team finishes 8th at World Championship
Anup Sridhar defeated world # 16 Muhd Hafiz B. Hashim 21-19 18-21 21-15 in PQF of World Badminton Championship and reached QF where he lost to #1 world ranked player
Anup Sridhar defeated world # 12 Sato Shoji of Japan 20-22 21-16 21-18 in QF of Yonex-Sunrise Badminton Asia Championships and lost in the SF to former #1 player Hidayat Taufik
Billiards: Rupesh Shah – winner of IBSF World Billiards Championship (150 up format)
Pankaj Advani – winner of IBSF World Billiards Championship, Singapore (Timed Format)
Chess: Vishwanathan Anand winning the World Chess Championship
Cricket: India’s 20-20 cricket team winning the 20-20 World Cup
Golf: Jyoti Randhawa finishing second at European PGA Tour tournament Open de España in Madrid, Spain
Hockey: Indian hockey team winning Asia Cup
Motor racing: Narain Karthikeyan A1GP race win at China's Zhuhai International Circuit
Squash: Indian Squash team finishes eighth at World Men's Team Squash Championship
Snooker: Geet Sethi – semifinalist at IBSF World Snooker Championship
Tennis: Indian tennis team (Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna) upsets Croatia and the Czech Republic and loses 1-2 in semifinal to Spain of Hopman Cup tournament
Exploits of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi in doubles and Sania Mirza in singles and doubles are well known to Sports-India members
Volleyball: Indian under-19 Volleyball team tops its pool and then finishes 8th at World Junior Championship
- jaydeep
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
Rediff published their list of India's top sportspersons 2007
- Viswanathan Anand
- Sania Mirza
- Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok
- Anup Sridhar
- Indian hockey team
- Viswanathan Anand
- Sania Mirza
- Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok
- Anup Sridhar
- Indian hockey team
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
Thanks Jaydeep. How would you rate the performance of the Indian players? Would you rate the Indian 20-20 cricket team's performance at the World Cup in the Top Five?
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
My top five:
1. Vishy Anand (World Chess Champion)
2. Dola Bannerjee (recurve Archery world champion)
3. India winning 20-20 World Cup
4. Hopman Cup SF (Sania and Bops)
5. Pankaj Advani/Rupesh Shah -- Winner of respective world titlesin Billiards
PS -- Daniel Chopra winning PGA title would have made my list if honorary Indians were included. Ranjith in triple jump would have merited a mention but for his tainted performance in the world championships
1. Vishy Anand (World Chess Champion)
2. Dola Bannerjee (recurve Archery world champion)
3. India winning 20-20 World Cup
4. Hopman Cup SF (Sania and Bops)
5. Pankaj Advani/Rupesh Shah -- Winner of respective world titlesin Billiards
PS -- Daniel Chopra winning PGA title would have made my list if honorary Indians were included. Ranjith in triple jump would have merited a mention but for his tainted performance in the world championships
Last edited by arjun2761 on Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
I agree with 4 of what arjun has. I am not entirely sure about Hopman cup. We may have benefitted from a weaker field there. I would instead have Anup Sridhar at #4.
Doc, Somdev NCAA win deserves a mention too.
Didn't we win anything in shooting this year?
I would love to see football, hockey, basketball in this section. Hopefully in the next few years, we will be talking about Indian exploits in these fields.
Doc, Somdev NCAA win deserves a mention too.
Didn't we win anything in shooting this year?
I would love to see football, hockey, basketball in this section. Hopefully in the next few years, we will be talking about Indian exploits in these fields.
Last edited by gbelday on Thu Dec 27, 2007 9:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
Gautam,gbelday wrote: Doc, Somdev NCAA win deserves a mention too.
Didn't we win anything in shooting this year?
I would love to see football, hockey, basketball in this section. Hopefully in the next few years, we will be talking about Indian exploits in these fields.
Feel free to add other notable performances to the list. The list I compiled is not complete and I have not checked out the performances of athletes in boxing and few other sports.
Arjun became the first person to post his list of best five performances at Sports-India and I should commend him for it. We may agree or not agree with each other's list of five performances, hence it would be fun to see how each of us rate the performances.
In my opinion, Somdev's perfromance at NCAA tournament was commendable and it was a first by an Indian tennis player, but winning a NCAA tennis championship would rank lower than some performances by Indian sportsperson in 2007. I would not rank it among my top five.
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
In my analysis, the "depth" of a sport is an important factor. For example, qualifying for a soccer world cup (making top 32) imay be a greater achievement than winning a cricket world cup (and being ranked #1). I think Badminton is played seriously by very few sports powers (China and Japan essentially with Indonesia and Denmark being sporting non-entities otherwise) and, therefore, Anup making QF (in WC) and top 25 ranking equates (in my mind) to winning one round in a tennis GS and achieving ranking in the top 100-150 in men's tennis is terms of degree of difficulty. Note we have the equivalent of at least GS singles champs in badminton in Prakash and Gopichand who each won the All-England championship whereas our best tennis performance in the open era has been GS QFs by Vijay and Ramesh. Therefore, I would rate Sania's performance overall (top 30) as being more commendable than Anup's throughout the year (and her sports earnings also reflects that to a degree). However, I could not find a single performance of Sania to hang my hat on but thought that her effort in the Hopman Cup (with Bops in the doubles) was very commendable.gbelday wrote: I agree with 4 of what arjun has. I am not entirely sure about Hopman cup. We may have benefitted from a weaker field there. I would instead have Anup Sridhar at #4.
PS -- I agree with the doc on Somdev winning an NCAA title. This equates in difficulty to winning a high level (maybe 100 K) challenger based on the competition -- and is not the equal of Sania regularly matching the top 30 on the main WTA tour. I expect Somdev to come out next year and do very well at the challenger level but he may struggle with those in the top 100 until he adds something more to his game (which he will hopefully do in the course of this year).
Last edited by arjun2761 on Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
My top five would be:
1. India winning the T20I world championship in cricket
2. Vishwanathan Anand (world chess champion)
3. Sourav Ganguly (world's second best test batsman in 2007) and Anil Kumble (together helping India beat England & Pakistan)
4. Sania Mirza in the Hopman Cup
5. Dola Banerjee (Champion in the World Cup final for Recurve archery)
I am taking account of the importance of the sport to India and the world.
1. India winning the T20I world championship in cricket
2. Vishwanathan Anand (world chess champion)
3. Sourav Ganguly (world's second best test batsman in 2007) and Anil Kumble (together helping India beat England & Pakistan)
4. Sania Mirza in the Hopman Cup
5. Dola Banerjee (Champion in the World Cup final for Recurve archery)
I am taking account of the importance of the sport to India and the world.
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
Check out websites of Indian boxing and shooting.gbelday wrote: Didn't we win anything in shooting this year?
I would love to see football, hockey, basketball in this section. Hopefully in the next few years, we will be talking about Indian exploits in these fields.
National Rifle Association of India
Indian Boxing
Both websites are decent and have some useful information.
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
I presume it will be rather misleading to mention Dola Banerjee as a World Champion or to say she had won the World Championship. She won the World Cup finals title and that event was the culmination of a series of World Cup events through the course of the year. Dola lost her second-round match in the recurve event in the World championships in Leipzig in July. World championships are held biennially while four World Cup events in 2007 led to the finals in Dubai.
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
I presume it will be rather misleading to mention Dola Banerjee as a World Champion or to say she had won the World Championship.
Agree with the second part but not necessarily with the first part. Someone, who qualified for the top 4 based on the series of 4 world cups in which the best archers participated (and Dola qualified even though she participated in only 2 of the world cup events) and then won the elite event among the best 4 arguably was the best performer for the year (ie., de facto world champion). You can make a strong case that making the world cup finals and then winning it requires more sustained brilliance then winning a one off world championship especially since all the top performers in the "championship" participate the world cups as well.
Last edited by arjun2761 on Fri Dec 28, 2007 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Top Ten Sports Performances of 2007 by Indian Sportsperson/Team
You might have a point there. I wasn't trying to question the inherent worth of Dola Banerjee's World Cup title.arjun2761 wrote: You can make a strong case that making the world cup finals and then winning it requires more sustained brilliance then winning a one off world championship especially since all the top performers in the "championship" participate the world cups as well.