Baseball

Industriales is at the gates of the qualification for the 2nd phase of the 55th Cuban Baseball Championship after knocking out Camaguey 12-0 to be ratified in the 2nd seat of the standings.

The right-hander Frank Monthiet starred an extraordinary pitching performance when allowing only 2 hits and striking out 6 in 8 innings, supported by attack of 14 hits, with highlight to shortstop Lourdes Y. Gourriel, who hit 3 and 4, with a homer and 5 RBIs.

Pinar del Rio and Matanzas also achieved important victories against Ciego de Avila and Artemisa, respectively, to increase their chances of qualifying to the elite stage of the tourney.

The first of them knocked out Artemisa's Los Cazadores 11-1, with Yosvani Torres' 3rd win and offensive highlight of Juan Carlos Arencibia, Reinier Leon, William Saavedra, Dayron Hernandez and Pedro Luis Duenas, all with 2 RBIs per capita.

Meanwhile, Yoandry Ruiz allowed 3 hits and 2 earned runs in 6 innings to lead Matanzas to a close 4-3 win over the leader Ciego de Avila.

Villa Clara kept alive its hopes by beating Mayabeque 10-4, with 3rd baseman Yeniet Perez hitting 5-5 including a homer and 5 RBIs, seconded by shortstop Marcos Fonseca's homer and a couple of RBIs.

In turn, runner-up Isla de la Juventud defeated Las Tunas 3-1 to feed its options to access the next phase, with Luis Manuel Suarez' victory and Danny Aguilera's salvege, while outfielder Leonardo Urgellés went 2-4 with 1 RBI.

In contrast, Cienfuegos suffered a costly 4-1 loss against Sancti Spiritus by Yamichel Perez' excellent pitching performance, who only allowed 4 hits and 1 unearned in 9 innings.

Granma was winning 3-2 over Guantanamo when the game was suspended in the 7th, while Holguin-Santiago de Cuba clash was stopped at the beginning of the 10th tied at 1 run apiece.

With 5 days to the official closing of the qualifying stage, not counting the suspended matches, Ciego de Avila leads with 27-10, followed by Industriales (26-14), Pinar del Río (22-12), Granma (24-14), Las Tunas (23-14), Holguin and Matanzas (22-17), Guantanamo (20-18), Cienfuegos (19-18), Isla de la Juventud and Villa Clara (20-20), Sancti Spiritus (19-21), Santiago of Cuba (15-24), Camagüey (11-29), Artemisa (10-27) and Mayabeque (7-32).

Chess

The Russian Mednyi Vsadnik team for which Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez plays, lost 1.5-4.5 to the other Russian squad of Siberia in the 4th round of the European Chess Club Cup, based in Skopje, Macedonia.

Leinier (2732 Elo points) drew with Armenian GM Levon Aronian (2784) in 62 moves of a queen's pawn opening and shows 2 units of 3 possible.

The Mednyi Vsadnik also lined up other known players such as Peter Svidler (2 727), Nikita Vitugov (2 725) and Maxim Matlakov (2 689), but none of them managed to win as Svilder was defeated by former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (2 777) and Vitugov drew with Alxander Grischuk (2 774).

The other who drew was Vladimir Fedoseev (2 669), rival of Anton Korobov (2 700), while Maxim Matlakov (2 689) and Maxim Rodshtein (2 673) both lost to Chao Li (2 750) and Yue Wang (2 724), in that order.

With this result, the Siberia team, 2nd of pre-classification, has a perfect performance of 4 matches won, like the Azeri Socar and Moldovan Alkaloid, executioners of Italian Obiettivo Risarcimento Padova and Czech Avy Novy Bor, respectively.
The Mednyi Vsadnik dropped to 10th seat with 6 points when just 3 days remain for this multinational event attended by 50 teams defending 6 boards each.

Today, Cuban Leinier and his side will face Swiss GM Schachgesellschaft Zurich, which also owns a sextet of units, appears 8th and has Latvian GM Alexei Shirov (2715) as leading player.

The Socar and Siberia teams will star the main match while Alkaloid will play against Obiettivo Risarcimento Padova.

Badminton
Four Cuban badminton players will participate in the World Youth Championship to take place in Lima, capital of Peru, November 14th-15th.

Miguel Diaz, president of the Cuban Federation of that discipline, told local National Information Agency, the figures are Bryan Veliz, Angel Herrera, Melissa and Adriana Artiz Azcuy, all members of the national team.

The purpose, he said, is to compete in this contest in search of getting experiences while putting into practice what they learned in training.

Referring to the best badminton player of Cuba, Osleni Guerrero, he explained he must participate in 3 contests before the end of this year, including the International Tournament in Chile, from 14 to 18 of the current month.

The executive said Osleni will also attend events in the States and Mexico, in November, with the aim of scoring points for the world rankings and ensure a ticket to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, whose qualifying process closes on May the coming year.

So far this Season, Guerrero won the crown in the 16th edition of the Giraldilla Tournament, with a stage in Havana last March, plus a title in Chile.