Dainik Nation News Portal
Olympic medallist PV Sindhu yet again finished second-best in a major final but grabbed a historic individual silver medal at the Asian Games after losing the women’s singles title clash to world number one Tai Tzu-Ying here today.
No Indian had ever reached the final of a singles event at the Asian Games before the 23-year-old from Hyderabad, who lost 13-21 16-21 to Chinese Taipei’s Tai in just 34 minutes. It is the first time that India has won two individual medals at the Asian Games with Saina Nehwal clinching a bronze earlier. Saina was also conquered by Tai in the semifinals.
It was Sindhu’s third defeat in a big final this year, having lost the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games title clash to Saina Nehwal and the World Championship summit clash to Spain’s Carolina Marin. The Rio Olympic silver medallist had also lost the finals at India Open (to Beiwen Zhang) and Thailand Open (to Nozomi Okuhara) this year.
Having lost previous five encounters to Tai, world number three Sindhu needed to punch above her weight to tackle the Chinese Taipei ace. Tai was in complete control from the beginning, taking the first five points of the match, with her trademark sharp returns.
Sindhu had no option but to attack. She returned harder to reduce the deficit to 4-6 but Tai consistently outsmarted Sindhu, using the deft drop shots very effectively.
Gold eluded India as both the Indian men’s and women’s compound archery teams settled for silver medals at the 18th Asian Games after going down to powerhouse Korea in the finals today. It was a dramatic men’s final in which the Indian team was a point ahead of the Koreans at the end of the regulation four sets.
But the celebrating defending champion side, comprising Abhishek Verma, Rajat Chauhan and Aman Saini, was in for a surprise when Korea managed to log a point on review. One of the Korean team’s 9s in final set was deemed a 10 on revision leaving the two teams tied at 229-229.
In the shoot-off, the Koreans managed one inner 10 (closest to bull’s eye), a 10 and 9, compared to the two 10s and a 9 by the Indians, to walk away with the top honours. Earlier, the Indian women’s team comprising Muskan Kirar, Madhumita Kumari and Jyothi Surekha Vennam, lost 228-231 to Korea in a contest that went down to the wire till the final set of arrows.
India were leading 59-57 after the first set before Korea won the second set 58-56.
