CURRENT AFFAIRS 2012 SPORTS

CURRENT AFFAIRS 2012 SPORTS

JANUARY

• A. Amalraj won the national title by defeating A Sharath Kamal in the final of the 73rd Senior National and Inter-State Table Tennis Championships in Lucknow on 29 January 2012. Amalraj also won the double’s title with Sanil Shetty, by defeating Harmit Desai and Devesh Karia. In the women’s category Poulami Ghatak won the title by defeating K Shamini.
• Sixth seed GM Oliver Barbosa of Phillippines won the 10th Parsvnath International Open Grandmasters Chess tournament by defeating Indian IM Shyam Nikil. Indian International Master Lalith Babu won thebronze. 
• Senior Australian batsman Ricky Ponting was honoured with Austrlia’s highest civil honour along with a host of sportspersons of international repute. The former skipper was appointed an officer (AO) in the general division of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the sport of cricket as a leading player, and to the community through the establishment of the Ponting Foundation. 
• Rajasthan won its second consecutive Ranji Trophy title by defeating Tamil Nadu at the Chidambaram stadium, Tamil Nadu on 23 January 2012. V A Saxena of Rajasthan was awarded the Man of the Match in the final. 
• Argentina’s Lionel Messi was awarded the 2011 FIFA Best player award on 9 January 2012 in Zurich. He won the award for the third consecutive year. Japanese Homare Sawa was awarded the 2011 FIFA Best player in the women’s category. Barcelona’s coach Pep Guardiola was named FIFA Coach of the Year. 
• Kerala men won the National title for the fourth time, in the 60th senior National volleyball championship by defeating uttarakhand at the Balbir Juneja Indoor Stadium, Raipur on 11 January 2012. The Railways won the national title in the women’s category.
• The Czech Republic defeated France and lifted its second Hopman Cup held in Perth, Australia. Thomas Berdych and Petra Kvitova represented the Czech. 
• Milos Raonic of Canada won the Chennai open tennis title,2012. Leander peas and Janko Tipsarevic won the mens doubles title. 
• The 19-year-old Rohith Lalith Babu became the 26th Grandmaster of India and fourth GM from Andhra Pradesh. Incidentally, the last Indian to become a GM was D Harika, also from the same state. Babu is also from the same city which World runners-up Humpy hails from. Harikrishna is the other GM from the A.P State.

FEB

• East Zone won the Duleep Trophy for the first time in 51 years by defeating Central Zone by an innings and 20 runs at the Holkar stadium, Indore on 14 feb. 
• Victoria Azarenka of Belarus defeated Samantha Stosur to win her third successive title of the year at the WTA Qatar Open 2012 on 20 feb.
• World no 1 tennis star, Novak Djokovic of Serbia was awarded with the highest Serbian award, the Gold Star of Karadjordje on 15 February 2012.It was conferred upon him by the Serbian President Boris Tadic.
• Sania mirza of india and Anastasia Rodinova of Australia won the Pattaya open womens tennis title held in Pattaya on 12 February. 
• Zambia WON THE AFRICA NATION S CUP TITLE by dedfeating the Ivorycoast on 13 february.
• Saketh Mineni of Andhra Pradesh won the Mens National Grass court Tennis championship, while Reshmi chkrobarthy of TamilNadu won the womens title.Tournament was held in kolkatta. 
• Egypt defeated India 2-1 in the final of the Under-21 Squash World Cup held in chennai,on 5 February 2012. Marwan El Shorbagy defeated Ravi Dixit while Karim Abdel Gawad beat Ramit Tandon . However Dipika Pallikal manged to win on her opponent. 
• Aditya Mehata won the National Snooker Championship title held in Pune, by defeating Kamal chawla. 
• In the 100th edition of The Australian Open (2012), Serbia’s Novak Djokovic won the title by defeating Rafel Nadal of Spain in the mens singles while Victoria Azarenka of Belarus won the women’s singles by defeating Maria Sharapova of Russia. In the men’s doubles Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek won the title by defeating Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan. In the women’s doubles Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva, both from Russia defeated Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, to win the title. The mixed event was won by Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Horia Tecau. 
• Pendyala Harikrishna of India won the prestigious TATAsteel international chess title which was held in Netherlands. 
• Pankaj Adwani won the Nationsl Billiards Chess championship by defeating the Balachandra Bhaskar in the finals which was held in Pune. 
• Sourabh Varma defeated B Sai Praneeth in the final to clinch the Senior National Badminton Championship title in Bangalore.. The ninth seeded PV Sindhu defeated second seed Neha Pandit in the women's singles final to lift the title. In the mixed doubles category, top seeds Arun Vishnu and Balan Aparna, In the Mens doubles Kona Tarun and Arun Vishnu in the women's doubles, second seeds Pradnya Gadre and Prajakta Sawant won the titles.

MARCH

• Indian Kabaddi women team won the first ever Women World Cup Kabaddi championship title defeating Iran on 4 March 2012, held in Patna... Sixteen countries participated in this event.
• Indian middle order batsman and former captain Rahul Dravid, on 9 March 2012, announcedhis retirement from international cricket. He has the credit of second highest aggregate of runs in the test history only after Sachin Tendulkar. Dravid scored 13,288 runs in 164 Tests, including 36 hundreds. Dravid made his international debut on 20 June 1996 while playing at the Lord’s against England. He had announced his retirement from the ODIs in England in 2011.
• Roger Federer won the Dubai international open singles tennis title by defeating Andy Murray in the finals held in Dubai on 3 March. While Indian duo Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan bopanna won the mens doubles title. 
• West Indian cricket player Runok Mortan on 4 March, killed in a car accident. He played 15 test matches, 56 one day internationals and seven 20-20 matches since 2002.
• Iconic India batsman Sachin Tendulkar on 25 February became the first overseas player to be presented with the honorary life membership of the Sydney Cricket Ground.