Nairobi, Aug 20 (IANS): While Shaili Singh maintained India's hopes of more medals at the World Athletics U20 Championships by reaching women's long jump final, javelin thrower Ajai Raj Singh Rana came close to the medals but eventually had to be satisfied with a fifth-place finish on Friday.

Rana's best attempt on Friday evening was 73.68m, which came in his fourth throw. However, this was far behind his personal best of 74.75m. Fellow Indian Jay Singh finished sixth with a best throw of 70.74m.

Though both could not replicate their best efforts at Nairobi, the Athletics Federation of India, in a tweet, termed their performance "creditable effort from both the boys on a world stage".

India has so far won only a bronze medal through the 4x400 Mixed Relay team on the opening day of the competition.

Earlier in the morning, Nandini Agasara failed to progress to t'e women's 100m hurdles final after finishing sixth in 14.16 seconds in the second semifinal. Nandini, who had earned direct qualification to the semis, finished fourth in her heat.

In the men's 110m hurdles, Tejas Shirse came fifth in heat 3, clocking 13.87 seconds, and finished 17th overall. The top three from each heat, along with the next four fastest hurdlers, made it to the semi-finals.

In women's 1500m, India's Pooja missed the semis spot, finishing 11th in Heat 1 with a timing of 4:37.85. It gave her 19th place overall, with only 12 runners progressing to the semis.

IN men's 200m, the 19-year-old Shanmuga Srinivas finished fifth in Heat 2, clocking 21.33 seconds. Srinivas' timing put him in 23rd place overall and he missed out on the semis by 0.02 seconds.

In the afternoon session, Sunil Joliya finished 11th in Heat 2 of the men's 3000m steeplechase, with timing of 9:49.23, which was way short of his personal best of 8:55.48. Sunil Joliya placed 22nd overall, missing the final cut by almost 20 seconds.