Indian swimmer Srihari Nataraj has qualified for the finals of men's 100m backstroke after clocking 54:55 seconds in the semi-final of the ongoing Commonwealth Games here.
The 21-year-old finished fourth in his heat and seventh overall to secure a berth in the medal round that will take place on Sunday.
South African Pieter Coetze, however, was the fastest swimmer across both the semi-finals, clocking 53.67s on day one of the competition.
The Bengaluru swimmer will now set his sights on becoming only the second Indian swimmer to bag a medal in the Commonwealth Games since Prasanta Karmakar's historic bronze in the para-swimming event at the Delhi CWG in 2010.
At the Tokyo Olympics last year, Nataraj had become the first Indian to swim in the classification A heat. The young swimmer had clocked 54:31s to finish 27th in the men's 100m backstroke event.
On Saturday, Kushagra Rawat finished last in his heat in the men's 200m freestyle event.
Rawat clocked 1:54.56 seconds in heat 3, which was won by Elijah Winnington of Australia with a timing of 1:46.87s.
South Africa's Matthew Sates finished second and qualified for the final with a timing of 1:48.25s. The top two from the eight-member field in heat 3 qualified for the final.
