No day for shooters
Indian men's 25m rapid fire pistol team narrowly missed out on a bronze as they finished fourth after ending up with same points as Vietnam with a tally of 1704. Harpreet Singh failed to qualify for the final round finishing seventh.
Equestrian team at no 4
The quartet of Sangram Singh, Fouaad Mirza, Mrityunjay Singh Rathore, Pooviah Ajai Appachu ended at fourth in the seven-team field, behind South Korea, Japan and China at the 17th Asian Games today.
Kumari in form Deepika Kumari, India's best bet in women's
archery came up as the eighth best in the ranking round of the women's individual recurve event. The 20-year-old Ranchi-born archer, a double gold medal winner at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, had a combined score of 1337 over four distances – 70m, 60m, 50m and 30m – and now will take on Uzbekistan's Munira Nurmanova in the pre-quarter final elimination round on September 26.
Shuttle service
Ace shuttlers Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu sailed into the second round of women's singles competition. While Olympics bronze medallist Saina made mincemeat of her lesser-known opponent U Teng Iok of Macau, notching up a 21-10 21-8 win, Sindhu whipped Kit leng Wong of Macau 21-17 21-13 in another lop-sided match that lasted for 19 minutes at the Gyeyang Gymnasium here. The Indian women's doubles pair of Pradnya Gadre and Sikki Reddy Nelakurthi and men's doubles combination of B Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Attri too stormed into the second round with easy victories.
Having a ball
Indian men hardly broke a sweat as they thrashed Maldives 25-10 25-19 25-17 in exactly an hour to enter the quarterfinal of the Volleyball competition. The male spikers had beaten Hong Kong in their first group league game and by virtue of two wins in the four-team group, find themselves earning a last eight berth. India will play the formidable Iran (Asia No 2) in the final group league encounter.
No net profit
India crashed out of men's basketball competition in the Asian Games after losing to Iran in a preliminary round match today.
The Indian team lost 41-76, their second consecutive defeat in preliminary round Group E, to make an exit from the tournament. They had lost 76-85 against Philippines yesterday. Only two teams from Group E will qualify for quarterfinals.
No hope in sepaktakraw
Indian men's and women's sepaktakraw teams suffered their second consecutive defeats leaving them with little chance of advancing to the next round at the 17th Asian Games here today.Both the men's and women's teams suffered an identical 0-3 thrashing at the hands of defending champions Thailand in the preliminary round matches. The Indian men were outplayed by their powerhouse opponents as they lost 0-2, 0-2, 0-2 in the three regus in their Group A preliminary round match.
WATER WOES
There was no end to Indian swimmers' dismal run at the Asian Games as the team finished a lowly seventh in the 4x100m freestyle relay final while none managed to make the final of two individual events here today. The Indian quartet of Anshul Kothari, Sajan Prakash, Neil Contractor and Aaron D'Souza clocked a disappointing 3:25.94 to be second from bottom in the eight-team final. Things were no better in the individual competition with Sandeep Sejwal finishing fifth in the men's 100m breaststroke heats.
Courting trouble
Natasha Palha crashed out of the women's singles event following a straight-set defeat but the combo of Shweta Rana and Rishika Sunkara made a bright start for India in women's doubles, recording an easy win over Pakistan's Sara Mansoor and Ushna Suhail in the 17th Asian Games here today. Palha fought hard against Thailand's Noppawan lertcheewakaran before losing 5-7 3-6 in one hour and 55 minutes in the second round contest. Palha had got a bye in the first round. The Indian challenge is still alive in women's singles as country's top singles player Ankita Raina is up against Mongolia's Gotov Dulguunjargal. 12th seed Ankita, who also got a first round bye, has a good chance to advance to the quarterfinals since the Mongolian is not even ranked on WTA charts. In the women's doubles today, Rishika and Shweta thrashed Pakistani girls 6-4 6-0 in just 57 minutes to advance to the pre-quarterfinals. World number 5 in doubles, Sania Mirza and Prathana Thombare play against Mongolia's Gotov and Bolor Enkhbayar. Sanam Singh and Yuki Bhambri have exited from the men's team competition, will open their men's singles event.