Somdev takes centrestage, India maintains 8th spot on table

Guangzhou: Tennis star Somdev Devvarman took centre stage by fetching a gold medal in doubles event and also becoming the first Indian to reach the final in men’s singles as India clinched three medals to maintain their 8th position on the tenth day of competitions in the 16th Asian Games here today.

Somdev teamed up with Sanam Singh to claim the title in the men’s doubles event and inched closer to a historic singles gold by moving into the final on what turned out to be a fruitful day for him.

Sania Mirza and Vishnu Vardhan had to be content with a silver in mixed doubles while the men’s archery team comprising Rahul Banerjee, Mangal Singh Champia and Jayanta Talukdar bagged a bronze in the team event.

With the addition of three more medals, India’s medal tally climbed to six gold, 12 silver and 18 bronze to maintain their 8th position on a day which saw the athletes drawing blank.

Hosts China continued to reign supreme and consolidated their posision atop the medal table with a stupendous haul of 154-77-73 while South Korea (61-51-66) and Japan (32-59-67) were in the second and third.

Five-time world champion M C Mary Kom (51kg) and Kavita Goyat (75kg) assured India of at least two bronze medals in women’s boxing by advancing to the semifinals with contrasting wins. Santosh Kumar also advanced to the semi-finals in the men’s section.

After launching their campaign in spectacular fashion by fetching two gold medals, the athletes returned empty-handed today while the grapplers, who acconted for two bronze medals yesterday, came a cropper in Greco Roman competitions.

The women’s hockey team went down to China 1-2 in their last league match but were still in contention for a bronze medal.

The day clearly belonged to Somdev as he pipped Japan’s Tatasuma Ito 6-2 0-6 6-3 in the semifinals to set up the summit-clash with top seed Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan.

Later, he and Sanam Singh combined superbly to win first gold medal for India in the tennis event in this edition of the Games as the sixth seed pair shocked second seed Chinese Gong Maoxin and Li Zhe 6-3 6-7(4) 10-8 in the final.

However, gold eluded Sania yet again as she and Vishnu Vardhan, seeded sixth, lost the mixed doubles final 6-4 1-6 2-10 to second seed Taipei pair of Chan Yung Jan and Yang Tsung Hua.