Asian Games: Sodhi wins double trap gold, women’s archery team bronze (Afternoon Lead)

GUANGZHOU - Double trap shooter Ronjan Singh Sodhi won India’s first gold in shooting while the team bagged the bronze at the Asian Games here Sunday.

The Indian women’s archery recurve team — Dola Banerjee, Deepaki Kumari and Rimil Buriuly — won the bronze, beating Chinese Taipei 218-217 in a close contest.

In fact, the Indian team missed a golden opportunity to upset World No.1 South Korea in the semifinal as they went down in the tie breaker 29-26, having tied at 221 after four rounds of tense competition. The nerves got the better of the Indian trio, who were leading by two points after the third round, in the final round as they shot a 54 against the 56 by the fancied Koreans.

There was also good news in tennis, where Somdev Devvarman entered the semifinal beating top Chinese player Zhang Ze 6-4, 6-4, assured himself of at least a bronze in the men’s singles event.

The Indian shooters, whose performance has been below par, finally added a gold to the medal tally. Sodhi, a double world record holder, was the only Indian to qualify for the final of double trap.

Sodhi won India’s third gold after cueist Pankaj Advani and rower Bajranj Lal Thakar.

Sodhi shot 47 in the final for a total of 186. Juma Dalmook Al Maktoum of UAE won the silver with a total of 182 points (138+44) and the bronze went to Hamad Ali Al Marri (136+45) of Qatar in a shoot-off after three shooters were tied for a third place.

The Indian trio of Sodhi (139), junior World Champion Asher Noria (134) and Vikran Bhatnagar (130) shot a total of 403 to win the team bronze.

The team gold went to Chinese trio of Pan Qiang (143), Mo Junjie (136) and Hu Binyuan (135) with a total score of 414. IOC Kuwait settled for the silver medal with the trio of Fehaid Aldeehani (137), Hamad Alafasi (136) and Meshfi Almutairi (134) shooting a total of 407.

In tennis, Somdev, who was down 1-4 against sixth-seeded Zhang, won eight games in a row to put it beyond the Chinese.

Zhang made a brief comeback, breaking Somdev in the fourth game of the second set, but failed to sustain the momentum as the Indian wrapped up the match in nearly two hours at the Aoti Tennis Center.

Somdev will face Japan’s Tatsuma Ito in the semi-final.

Somdev’s compatriot Karan Rastogi, seeded seventh, lost 2-6, 6-4, 5-7 to top seed Dennis Istomin of Uzbekistan in the quarterfinal.