UNI
 
Doha, Dec 11: Vinayak Dalvi's bronze medal in the 55kg category was the lone saving grace for the seven-member Indian Greco-Roman contingent at the 15th Asian Games here on Sunday night.

Dalvi beat Dang Dinh Hue of Vietnam in the preliminaries before losing to Jiao Huafeng of China in quarterfinals.

In the play-off, the Indian beat Rinat Usupjanov of Kyrghizstan 3-1 for the bronze.

In the morning, Dharmender Dalal (120Kg) and Manoj Kumar (84kg) had lost their first round bouts.

Earlier on Saturday, three Indians -- Ravinder Singh (60kg) Sanjay (74kg) and Anil Kumar (96kg) had made their exit.

In the quarterfinal bouts, Shripati Patil could not match the aggression of Kazakhstan grappler Aibek Yensekhanov and lost 1-3.

In an uneven bout, the Kazakh proved much stronger and collected eight technical points to emerge winner in a bout which lasted 01:06 minutes.

In the first session in 66kg category, 23-year old Shripati Patil overpowered Amer El Jeneidi (Lebanon) 3-1 in a well planned technical bout. The Indian was very aggressive in his approach and earned eight technical points in the first period and six in the second and also collected three classification points while his rival could manage only one technical and one classification point.

Jeneidi never posed any serious threat to the Indian and lost in bout that lasted just 2:37 minutes.

In another bout, Iran's Saman Tahmasebi overwhelmed Manoj Kumar in 84kg category winning the bout 3-0 in 3:17 minutes.

The Iranian was very swift and caught Manoj several time above his waist and the Indian found hard to wriggle out of his rival's grip.

Dharmender Dalal tamely to Tajikistan's Murodjon Tuychiev in the 120kg bout, which lasted barely one minute. Tuychiev thrashed the Indian 5-0 in a bout, which was virtually reduced to a no-contest.