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IMAGE: After the singles gamers upset, India’s males’s doubles pair of Ramkumar Ramanathan and Saketh Myneni ensured a medal for India. {Photograph}: SAI Media/X
Ramkumar Ramanathan and Saketh Myneni ensured that tennis will contribute to India’s medal tally on the Asian Video games by reaching the lads’s doubles semifinals however Sumit Nagal and Ankita Raina drew a clean after dropping their respective singles quarterfinals.
The second-seeded Indian pair quelled a late problem from China’s Zhizhen Zhang and Yibing Wu for a 6-1 7-6(8) win within the quarterfinals.
Reaching the semifinal stage implies that India is assured of at the least a bronze. Whereas it will likely be third Asian Video games medal for Myneni, who received the lads’s doubles silver and blended doubles gold in 2014 — it will likely be the first-ever medal for Ramkumar, who has endured a torrid 2023 season, by which he misplaced 17 first spherical singles matches.
The highest-seeded pair of Rohan Bopanna and Yuki Bhambri was thought-about a sure-shot medal contender however the Indian workforce made a shock early exit.
Within the singles matches on Wednesday each Nagal and final version’s bronze medallist Raina exited the continental championship, squandering a one-set benefit.
In one other disappointing outcome, the highest seeded Indian pair of Yuki Bhambri and Raina crashed out of the blended doubles occasion, following a 4-6 6-4 8-10 defeat in opposition to Philippines’ Francis Casey Alcantara and Alex Eala within the pre quarter-finals.
Veteran Rohan Bopanna and his associate Rutuja Bhosale inched nearer to a blended doubles medal, profitable their pre quarter-final match in opposition to thirteenth seeded Japanese pair of Ayano Shimizu and Shinji Hazawa 6-3 6-4.
IMAGE: Sumit Nagar crashed out within the quarterfinals because the Indian tennis squad returned empty-handed from the continued Asian Video games. {Photograph}: Mike Segar/Reuters
SINGLES DISAPPOINTMENT
Up in opposition to prime seed and residential favorite Zhizhen Zhang, it was at all times going to be a herculean job for Nagal to go previous the world quantity 60.
To his credit score, Nagal took a set off the Chinese language earlier than dropping steam within the males’s singles quarterfinals, which he misplaced 7-6(3) 1-6 2-6 in two hours and 16 minutes.
Somdev Devvarman had received a males’s singles gold in 2010 and after that Yuki Bhambri (2014, Incheon) and Prajnesh Gunneswaran (2018, Jakarta & Palembang) received a bronze every within the following editions.
Raina, who had turn into solely the second Indian girl to win a singles bronze in 2018, waged a gritty battle in opposition to Japan’s Haruka Raji earlier than dropping her quarterfinal 6-3 4-6 4-6 in a marathon two hours and 53-minute contest.
Their exit implies that India is not going to have a singles medal from the Asian Video games for first time after the 2006 Doha version the place Rohan Bopanna and Karan Rastogi couldn’t attain the medal rounds within the males’s singles.
Ramkumar and Rutuja Bhosale had exited the singles competitors within the third and second spherical respectively.
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