Daijiworld Media Network – New Delhi
New Delhi, Sep 23: India secured a historic bronze medal in soft tennis at the Asian Games after Jay Meena progressed to the semi-finals with a hard-fought 4-3 victory over the Philippines’ Sherwin Nuguit in the quarter-finals.
Meena prevailed in a closely contested encounter, winning the deciding stages 7-5 after sets of 0-4, 4-2, 2-4, 5-3 and 2-4 had left the match finely balanced. His place in the last four guaranteed India a medal in soft tennis for the first time at the Asian Games.
In the semi-finals, however, Meena went down 2-4 to Japan’s Tukoya Kurosaka and settled for the bronze medal.
India also secured a bronze in the women’s skeet team event. Raiza Dhillon, Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Maheshwari Chauhan combined for 331 points, with Dhillon and Dhaliwal scoring 111 each and Chauhan contributing 109. China won gold with 346 points, while Kazakhstan claimed silver. The result marked India’s sixth shooting medal at the ongoing Asian Games.
Double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker advanced to the women’s 10m air pistol individual final after clearing the qualification round. Suruchi Inder Singh and Esha Singh, however, failed to make the medal round.
In rowing, Balraj Panwar booked a place in the men’s single sculls Final A after clocking 6:52.84 and finishing third in his heat. Satnam Singh and Salman Khan also advanced to the men’s double sculls final after recording 6:15.63 for second place in their heat.
India made further progress in canoe sprint, with Harshwardhan Shaktawat, Varinder Singh, L Naocha Singh Oinam and Arun Singh advancing to the men’s kayak four 500m final after clocking 1:29.447.
Megha Pradeep reached the women’s canoe single 200m semi-finals, while Parvathy Geetha and Phairembam Soniya Devi progressed in the women’s kayak double 500m event.
India also registered mixed doubles victories in table tennis through the pairs of Harmeet Desai-Yashaswini Ghorpade and Manush Shah-Diya Chitale.
In swimming, Benedicton Beniston finished 13th in the 100m butterfly, while Sajan Prakash did not start. Vedaant Madhavan and Aneesh Sunil finished sixth and fourth respectively in their 200m freestyle heats, with their final qualification status awaiting confirmation.