Tennis gold-silver, archery bronze take India’s Asiad tally to 36 (Evening Lead)

GUANGZHOU - A gold and silver in tennis and a bronze in archery took India’s medal tally to 36 on the tenth day of competitions at the Asian Games here Tuesday.

While Somdev Devvarman and Sanam Singh claimed the tennis men’s doubles gold with a sensational victory over a higher ranked Chinese pair, the Sania Mirza-Vishnu Vardhan pair settled for the silver in the mixed doubles; the men’s archery team won a bronze.

World champion boxer Mary Kom was headed for a podium finish, while Somdev will pick up at least a silver in the men’s singles.

India’s 36 medals, comprise six gold, 12 silver and 18 bronze.

Sixth seeded Somdev-Sanam Singh combined well to defeat second seeded Chinese Maoxin Gong and Zhe Li 3-7, 7-6 (4), 1-0(8).

The Sania-Vishnu pair had to settle for a silver following their 6-4, 1-6, 0-1 loss to Chinese Taipei’s Yung Jan Chan and Tsung Hua Yang.

Sania had won a gold with Leander Paes in the mixed doubles at the 2006 Doha Asiad.

She won a bronze in the singles event here.

The Indian archers, who lost to South Korea 216-222 in the semifinal, beat Chinese Taipei 220-218 in a closely contested match at the Aoti Archery Range.

The Indian team of Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee and Mangal Singh Champiya opened up a five point lead in the first round after which they led 57-52. The second round was tied at 56 each, but Chinese Taipei came back strongly in the third round scoring 58 while India managed 53.

Both the teams were tied at 166 each with just one round left. Indian archers held their nerve and shot 54 while the Taipei team got 50.

The women’s team had won its maiden bronze medal Sunday beating Chinese Taipei 218-217.

Four-time world champion Mary Kom crushed Meng Chieh Ping of Chinese Taipei 16-2 to move into the semifinals of the 48-51 kg women’s boxing event.

Mary Kom, who got a bye in the first round, will next face China’s Ren Cancan who defeated Nepal’s Sanju Lama 10-0, for a place in the final.

The Manipur mother of twins is a strong contender for gold and proved her supremacy with a power-packed performance against Ping.

The nimble-footed Mary Kom opened up a 3-0 lead in the first round and then rained punches in the second to extend her lead to 8-0. Keeping her guard lower, Mary Kom invited Meng to attack, but anticipated her opponent’s move brilliantly. Having opened up Meng, Mary Kom then went all out attacking to score points.

The fight was almost over for Ping who managed two points in the third round against Mary Kom’s three.

The Indian was in no mood to give her opponent any freebies and added five more points to her tally to warm up for the semi-final.

Somdev entered the men’s singles final defeating fourth-seeded Japanese Tatsuma Ito 6-2, 0-6, 6-3 in the tennis competition.

Somdev plays top seed Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan in the final for the gold. Istomin outclassed third-seeded Japanese Go Soeda 6-1, 6-0.

Indian men blanked Japan 3-0 while the women thrashed China by the same margin in the squash team event.

In the men’s event, Sourav Ghoshal gave India the lead, defeating Yuta Fukui 11-6, 11-2, 11-6.

Siddharh Suchde then made it 2-0 with a 11-5, 12-10, 11-6 defeat of Shinnosuke Tsukue while Harinder Sandhu keeped the slate clean, getting the better of Takanori Shimizu 11-9, 11-7, 12-10 in the Pool B contest.

It was the Indian men’s second win after beating Qatar 3-0. Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Korea are the other teams in the pool.

In women’s pool B, Joshana Chinappa defeated Li Jiang 11-1, 11-7, 11-1.

Dipika Pallikal then defeated Dongjin Li 11-2, 11-5, 11-6 before Anaka Alankamony beat Gu Jinyue 11-7, 11-2, 11-5.

The other teams in India’s pool are Hong Kong and China.