Ace Indian boxer Shiva Thapa began his Commonwealth Games campaign with a victory against Pakistan’s Suleman Baloch in the first round of the 63.5kg category, here on Friday.
The 28-year-old Thapa registered a comprehensive 5-0 win over Baloch to move to the pre-quarter finals of the light welter weight category. Thapa was technically far superior to Baloch and landed a flurry of sharp punches on his opponent.
Victory for paddlers
India’s men’s and women’s table tennis teams had easy starts to their respective campaigns with identical 3-0 victories over Barbados and South Africa, respectively. In a group 3 encounter against minnows Barbados, the pair of Harmeet Desai and G Sathiyan steamrolled Kevin Farley and Tyrese Knight 11-9, 11-9, 11-4 while Sharath Kamal made short work of Ramon Maxwell 11-5, 11-3, 11-3 in less than 15 minutes.
Sathiyan then disposed of Tyrese Knight 11-4, 11-4, 11-5 to seal the tie. In the women’s event, the doubles duo of Sreeja Akula and Reeth Tennison beat the South African pair of Lailaa Edwards and Danisha Patel 11-7, 11-7, 11-5. Manika Batra then thrashed Musfique Kalam 11-5, 11-3, 11-2 in the first singles match.
Akula then came back and scored a 11-5, 11-3, 11-6 win over Patel.
Gurjit’s brace
The Indian women’s hockey team began their campaign with a 5-0 win over Ghana. The Savita Punia-led team was, however, far from impressive in their first Pool A game.
Gurjit Kaur (third, 39th minutes) scored a brace, while Neha Goyal (28th), Sangita Kumari (36th) and Salima Tete (56th) struck a field goal each for India. Penalty corner conversion haunted India as they made use of just one of the 10 chances that came their way.
Shuttlers dominate
India completed a 5-0 whitewash of Pakistan in their badminton mixed team campaign opener.
B Sumeeth Reddy and Machimanda Ponnappa defeated Muhammad Irfan Saeed Bhatti and Ghazala Siddique 21-9, 21-12. Then Kidambi Srikanth breezed past Murad Ali 21-7, 21-12 and PV Sindhu thrashed Mahoor Shahzad 21-7, 21-6. In the fourth match, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty defeated Murad and Bhatti 21-12, 21-9. In the concluding match, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand crushed Mahoor Shahzad and Ghazala Siddique 21-4, 21-5. Swimmer Srihari Nataraj clocked 54.68s to qualify for the semi-finals of the men’s 100m backstroke.
The 21-year-old from Bangalore was the third fastest swimmer in his heat and fifth fastest overall.