Ace paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal dished out a superlative performance, registering twin victories to advance to the semi-finals of mixed and men’s doubles competition along with his respective partners at the Commonwealth Games here on Friday.
Sharath first paired up with young Sreeja Akula to stun two-time silver medallists Liam Pitchford and TinTin Ho of England 3-2 in mixed doubles and then combined with Sathiyan Gnanasekaran to beat another English pair of Tom Jarvis and Sam Walker 3-0 in men’s doubles event. Another mixed pair of Sathiyan and Manika Batra, however, went down 2-3 to Malaysian combination of Javen Choong and Karen Lyne.
Sreeja and Sharath had earlier come from behind to beat Malaysia’s Leond Chee Fang and Ho Ying 5-11, 11-2, 11-6, 11-5 while Sharath and Gnanasekaran eased past Bangladesh’s Bawm Ramhimlian and Ridoy Mohutasin Ahmed 11-6, 11-1, 11-4 in their round of 16 clash.
Earlier, Manika and Sreeja had entered the women’s singles quarter finals. While Batra steamrolled Australian Jee Minhyung 11-4, 11-8, 11-6, 12-10, Sreeja held her nerves to beat Carey 8-11, 11-7, 12-14, 9-11, 11-4, 15-13, 12-10.
Easy for shuttlers
Indian shuttlers P V Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen stormed into the quarter finals of singles. Sindhu defeated Uganda’s Husina Kobugabe 21-10, 21-9 in her pre-quarter final match while Aakarshi Kashyap prevailed 21-2, 21-7 over Cyprus’ Eva Kattirtzi. Srikanth had a 21-9, 21-12 win over Sri Lanka’s Dumindu Abeywickrama.
Sen too advanced with a 21-9, 21-16 win over Australia’s Ying Xiang Lin. Men’s doubles duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and women’s duo of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly also advanced into the quarters.
Medal assured
India are assured of a second medal from lawn bowls competition after the men’s fours team of Sunil Bahadur (lead), Navneet Singh (second), Chandan Kumar Singh (third) and Dinesh Kumar (skip) defeated hosts England 13-12 in the semi-final to assure India of at least a silver.
Heartbreak for Hima
Hima Das failed to qualify for the 200m final by 0.01seconds. She clocked 23.42s in the semi-finals. The Indian men’s 4x400m relay team of Muhammed Anas Yahiya, Noah Nirmal Tom, Mohammed Ajmal and Amoj Jacob qualified for the final.
