India at the Asian Games: Day 8

Sailors give India a silver

India finished the Asian Games sailing competition at the Shanwei Water Sports Centre with a sole silver medal in Open Match Racing following a fight for the gold with Japan.

The Indian team of Balraj, Balkrishna Helegaonkar, Atool Singh, Farokh Tarapore and Shekhar Singh Yadav were beaten 0-3 in the best-of-five final by Japan while the bronze went to South Korea.

India had earlier in the day come from 0-2 down to put it across hosts China but any hopes of a come-from-behind victory in the final was dashed by sudden gusting wind.

Men's team grab golf silver

They missed out on individual medals but Indian golfers had a successful outing collectively retaining the men's team silver in the Asian Games.

The quartet of Rashid Khan (72), Abhijit Singh Chadha (76), Abhinav Lohan (72) and Rahul Bajaj (72) could not make much of an impact in the individual competition but their combined four-day score of 10-over 874 got them the silver behind the Korean team.

The combination of Kyoung Hoon Lee, Meen Whee Kim, Ilhwan Park, Jaehyeok Lee totalled a brilliant 22-under 842 to walk away with the gold medal.

Chinese Taipei settled for the bronze just a stroke behind the Indian team.

However, in the individual competitions, in which Shiv Kapur won a gold in the 2002 edition, the Indians could not make much of mark.

Rashid was highest-placed at tied fourth with a total of three-under 285. Abhinav was tied ninth with a four-day tally of three-over 291.

Rahul was way down at tied 39th after totalling 22-over 310.

The Indian women's team, however, disappointed in both the individual and team competitions.

Ghosal settles for bronze in squash event

India's ace racqueter Saurav Ghosal today settled for a bronze medal after losing his semifinal clash to top-seed Mohammad Azlan Iskandar of Malaysia in the men's singles squash event at the Asian Games.

World ranked 25 Ghosal waged a grim battle against an opponent ranked ten places higher than him in the world chart to eventually lose 5-11, 11-6, 5-11, 10-12 at the Town Gymnasium.

The 2006 Doha Asian Games bronze medallist Ghosal gave a tough fight to the Malaysian but failed to garner points at crucial junctures.

On Friday, he had defeated countrymate Siddharth Suchde, world ranked 73rd, 3-0 in the quarter-final to book his berth into the last-four stage.

India ends campaign in taekwondo

India's campaign in the taekwondo competitions of the Asian Games ended on a dismal note as Sunil Kumar and Kamineni Srilakshmi crashed out of their respective events.

Sunil lost 2-8 to Bahrain's Abdulrahim Ahmed in the pre-quarterfinals of the men's 54kg while Srilakshmi got a 0-9 thrashing at the hands of Jungah Oh of Korea in the quarter-finals of women's 73kg category.

In his first round bout earlier in the day, Sunil had defeated Sherpa Lakpa Tashi of Bhutan 12-5.

The gold in this category was won by Chutchawal Khawlaor of Thailand with the silver going to Ho Seong Kim of Korea.

Chia Lin Hsu of Taipei and Philippines' John Paul Lizardo pocketed a bronze each.

Indian men fail to advance in handball

Indian men notched up their first win of the handball competition with a 56-22 victory over Mongolia but that was not enough for them to advance to the knock-out round.

India won 20-8, 36-14 in their last preliminary round in their Group A match to collect two points to finish fifth in the six-team Group A.

Irungbam Nayachnadra Singh scored the maximum of 16 points, followed by Shamsher Singh with 10.

India will now play Hong Kong in the classification match for 9th-10th spot on Sunday.

In women's section, India slumped to their second straight loss in the preliminary round with a 16-32 defeat at the hands of Japan in Group B.

They will next play China in their last group match on Sunday.

Indian women spikers go down to Japan

Unlike the men who shocked Japan by notching up 3-2 victory, Indian women spikers continued to flounder and were outplayed 0-3 by Japan in the Asian Games volleyball championship at the Guangwai Gymnasium.

Indian women, who now have a very little chance of remaining in the tournament, started on a promising note by running close to their rivals in the first set.

But the challenge imposed by them soon fizzled out and they crashed to a 23-25, 16-25, 17-25 defeat, their second loss in three ties.

India were well-served by their captain Aswani Kiran and Minimol Abraham, who came up with lethal winners in a no-holds barred first set.

Japan, after being rattled a bit, however retaliated through Rika Nomoto, Minami Yoshida and Miku Izuoka to clinch the opening set.

With their nerves settled, the Japanese – with Nomoto leading the attack, proved unstoppable and dominated the Indians.

An error-prone and fast-tiring India provided Japan's captain Mariko Mori with the ideal openings to take a lead in the second set and though Tiji Raju, Abraham and Kiran fought back.

The leeway was too big to bridge and they lost it by 8 points.

In the third and deciding set, Indians looked a tired lot and the winners capitalised on that as they took advantage of India's strain of errors and scored into the rivals openings.

Indian eves swamp Kazakhstan

Rani Rampal scored three goals as Indian eves kept alive their bronze medal hopes in the hockey competitions at the Asian Games with a thumping 6-0 win over Kazakhstan in their penultimate round robin match at the Aoti Hockey Field.

With this win, India, who were tied on points with Kazakhstan going into today's encounter, has improved their medal chances and are now lying fourth in the seven-team competition with nine points from five matches.

The 1982 gold medallist had routed Malaysia 4-0 and Thailand 13-0 but lost to 0-1 and 0-3 to South Korea and Japan in their previous matches.

India will now lock horns with defending champions China, who are aiming for a hat-trick of titles, in their final league match on Monday.

Vijender in semis, Amandeep in quarters

World number one Vijender Singh (75kg) out-slugged Korea's Deokjin Cho to enter the semi-finals and assure himself of at least a bronze medal in the boxing competition of the Asian Games.

The 25-year-old Olympic and World Championship bronze-medallist got the better of Cho 13-2 in a one-sided contest at the Foshan Gymnasium here to take the total number of Indian boxers in semi-finals to three -- the other two being Dinesh Kumar (81kg) and Paramjeet Samota (+91kg).

The dashing Haryana-pugilist, who won a bronze in the previous Asian Games in Doha, will now face Mohammad Sattapour of Iran in the semi-finals.

Earlier in the day, Amandeep Singh blanked Pakistan's Muhammad Waseem to make the light flyweight 49kg quarter-finals. The Commonwealth Games bronze medallist will face Filipino Iii Victorio Saludar in the last-eight stage.

India down Pakistan to enter hockey semis

Penalty corner specialist Sandeep Singh struck twice to power India to a 3-2 win over Pakistan and into the semi-finals of the Asian Games men's hockey tournament in Guangzhou.

It was India's fourth straight victory over Pakistan this year.

Sandeep Singh scored India's first and third goal in the third and 48th minute while Dharamvir Singh netted a fine field goal in between to ensure India's third successive victory in Group B.

Rehan Butt (fourth) and Shakeel Abbasi (43rd minute) scored for Pakistan.

With nine points in their kitty, India are sitting on top of the table with one match to go against Japan on Sunday.

It was India's third victory over Pakistan in 12 Asian Games clashes and 48th overall in 146 clashes.

Sania upsets Tanasugarn, assured of bronze

Sania Mirza created the first upset of the tournament by shocking second seed Tamarine Tanasugarn to enter the semi-finals and Somdev Devvarman capped an all-win day assuring India of at least two more bronze medals in the tennis event of the Asian Games.

Unseeded Sania, a silver medallist at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, scored an upset 6-2, 6-3 win over Thailand's Tanasugarn to reach the women's singles semis.

The 166th ranked Indian, a silver medallist at 2006 edition in Doha, relied on her power-packed strokes to beat the Thai, who once figured in top-20 and now stands at number 58 in the world.

Sania escaped unscathed in a tough opening game, in which she saved six breakpoints, and gradually took control over the contest, which lasted one hour and 27 minutes.

Somdev, who has already won a bronze in the men's team event, assured himself of another bronze in the men's doubles by reaching the semifinals along with compatriot Sanam Singh.

They beat the Chinese pair of Yan Bai and Zhang Ze 6-2, 6-4 in the men's doubles quarter-finals at the Aoti Tennis Centre.

Indian men strengthened top position in chess

Grandmaster GN Gopal scored an upset victory over a higher rated opponent as India outsmarted Kazakhstan in the men's chess team event and strengthened their position as sole leaders after the third round in the Asian Games.

Gopal got the better of Yevgeni Vladimirov after all of his compatriots P Harikrishna, Krishnan Sasikiran and Surya Sekhar Ganguly played out a draw to win the round three tie against Kazakhstan 2.5-1.5.

Harikrishna drew with Murtas Kazhgaleyev while Sasikiran and Ganguly split points with Darmen Sadvakasov and Rinat Jumabayev respectively.

On 10 points after three rounds, India have now widened the gap from the second-placed China, who are on eight points, to two points in the 17-team nine-round competition that ends on November 26.

In the women's section also, India pulled off a creditable draw with China by denying their higher rated opponents any victory in the four games.

International Master Harika Dronavalli began the good show for the Indian women by denying Grandmaster Hou Yifan a victory.

Tania Sachdev then drew with higher-rated Ju Wenjun in the second game before Esha Karavade, an International Master, splitting points with Grandmaster Zhao Xue.