NEW DELHI, Sept 30: India earned two golds on Day 7 of the Asian Games in Hangzhou in China on Saturday. While the mixed doubles duo of 43-year old Rohan Bopanna and Rutuja Bhosale earned the country the only gold in Lawn Tennis events, India upstaged Pakistan to win the Squash gold in a closely contested final.
In hockey, Indian men’s team also won their league match against Pakistan by a massive 10 goals to 2. Indian men’s team has also entered the final of badminton to vie for gold against China by defeating South Korea in the semi-final while the doubles duo of Mukherjee’s entered the semi-final of the women’s doubles in Table Tennis event assuring themselves of at least a bronze.
India so far totalled 38 medals including 10 Golds, and 14 each Silver and Bronze.
Top seeds India upstaged traditional rivals Pakistan in a sensational duel to claim the gold medal in the men’s team squash event at the Asian Games on Saturday.
The hero of the day was Chennai’s Abhay Singh, who kept his composure and raised his game to get the better of Noor Zaman 3-2 in a seesaw decider, in which the 25-year-old Indian saved two gold medal points to emerge triumphant and throw his racquet in the air.
This was after the seasoned Saurav Ghosal brought the Indians back into the contest with a 3-0 win over Muhammad Asim Khan after Mahesh Mangaonkar lost the opener to Iqbal Nasir by an identical margin. India thus avenged their defeat to the same opponent in the league stage of this edition of the continental showpiece.
Having lost to Noor in the group tie, it was clearly a grudge match for Abhay but unlike before, he kept a lid on his feelings and hunkered down for the job at hand. “I will be honest, there was a lot of talk from the other team three nights ago, some of it on social media. I am looking forward to some of that tonight as well. It was no banter, it was one-sided jabs. I have to give a lot of credit to Saurav. He’s been to six Asian Games and he’s been on my case night after night. I am young, I go on social media, checking out who’s saying what. But he said just one thing — shut the noise. We did that and there you are,” Abhay beamed.
It was not an easy match at any point. Abhay and Noor stayed level for the most part, never separated by more than a couple of points. The scoreline – 11-7, 9-11, 8-11, 11-9, 12-10 – reflects the same. The 19-year old Pakistani, excellent in both attack and defence, retrieved everything the Indian threw at him even as Abhay kept the ball in play from every impossible corner of the court. It was a match of the finest margins and India came out on top.
In the Lawn Tennis mixed doubles, Rutuja Bhosale raised her game in nick of time while seasoned Rohan Bopanna stayed solid with his big serves as India came back from a set down to win the tennis mixed doubles gold.
The second-seeded Indian team rallied to win the title clash 2-6 6-3 10-4 against Chinese Taipei’s combo of Tsung-hao Huang and En-shuo Liang.
The victory ensured that India will return with at least one tennis gold from the Asian Games in an otherwise disappointing campaign in which the country managed to win only two medals – the other being men’s doubles silver.
(Manas Dasgupta)
