Guangzhou:
The rowers provided an unexpected boost to India's medal hunt in the 16th Asian Games with two silver medals but poor form continued to haunt the fancied shooters with Gagang Narang flopping yet again on the sixth day of competitions here on Thursday.
Apart from the silver-winning feat of the rowers, shooter Vijay Kumar bagged a bronze medal and Paramjeet Samota assured himself of at least a bronze after punching his way into the semifinals of super heavyweight on yet another mediocre day for India's large contingent.
With the addition of two silvers and a bronze, India took their medals tally to one gold, seven silver and eight bronze but the failure to win the coveted gold has resulted in a continuous slide in the position on the table in the last few days.
Tennis star Sania Mirza had a trouble-free day as she sailed into the pre-quarterfinals of the women's singles with a straight-set demolition of Hong Kong's Chan Wing Yau Venise while the racqueters got off to a good start with both men's and women's team progressing to the quarterfinals of the squash singles event.
On the gloomier side, the Indian challenge in table tennis ended with Achanta Sharath Kamal and Anthony Amalraj bowing out in the pre quarterfinals of the men's singles event. It was a similar story in men's singles badminton with Arvind Bhatt crashing out out in the pre-quarterfinals.
It was the men's rowing four team of Anil Kumar, Saji Thomas, Ranjit Singh and Jenil Krishnan which began the silver collection as they completed the distance of 2000m in 6:16.79, behind China (6:06.40). Uzbekistan won bronze with a timing of 6:22.70.
In the men's lightweight four event final, the Indian quartet of Lokesh Kumar, Manjeet Singh, Rajesh Kumar Yadav and Satish Joshi finished second with a timing of 6:13.32, behind Japan who clocked 6:10.14. Hong Kong won the bronze, clocking 6:14.84.
After three barren days at the Aoti shooting range, Vijay Kumar notched up his second and India's fifth medal in shooting by bagging a bronze in men's 25m center fire pistol but Commonwealth Games hero Narang missed out on a bronze by a whisker in 50m rifle 3 positions.
Vijay shot 583 (290+293) to finish third behind South Korea's Park Byung Taek who scored 586 (290+296) and Liu Yadong of China who fired 585 (290+295).
The other two Indians in fray in the same event, Omkar Singh and Harpreet Singh finished eighth and 32nd respectively with scores of 580 and 563. This is Vijay's second medal in shooting, having won a bronze in 10m air pistol individual event.
Narang, who gave the country big hopes on the opening day of the competitions with a double silver haul (individual and team) in the men's 10m air rifle event, disappointed again in the 50m range. He, though qualified for the final but went off the boil to finish fourth with 1162, a point behind bronze medal winner Zhu Qinan of China.
Narang misfired in the final with a shocking 8.3 with his eighth shot that clearly cost him a medal. His 10.6 with the last shot made no difference.
Teammates Imran Hasan Khan (1150) and Sanjeev Rajput (1146), the country's best 3-position shooter, were totally off colour and the team too suffered to finish 4th with an overall aggregate of 3458.
At the Aoti Tennis centre, unseeded Sania needed just 50 minutes to whip Chan 6-1 6-0 with her booming forehands and effective backhands to book a meeting with Chinese sixth seed Zhang Shuai for a place in quarterfinals.
Compatriots Sanam Singh and Rushmi Chakravarthi advanced to the mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals with a 7-5 6-3 victory over Uzbekistan pair of Vaja Uzakov and Nigina Abduraimova while Poojashree Venkatesha became a first round casualty, suffering a 2-6 2-6 defeat against Chinese Taipei's Chen Kai Chang in women's singles.
In badminton, medal contender Saina Nehwal remained the only Indian left in the competition. Aravind Bhat crashed out of men's singles event while mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju also made an exit.
Bhat lost 19-21 12-21 to world number sixth Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand in his second round encounter while Jwala and Diju squandered a first game advantage to lose 21-17 13-21 16-21 against Koreans Baekcheol Shin and Hyojung Lee.
In boxing, Paramjeet Samota assured India of a medal after punching his way into the semifinals of super eavyweight category while Suranjoy Singh survived a tense bout to book a berth in the quarters of flyweight division. Samota, who got a first round bye in the nine-boxer +91kg competition, won a one-sided bout as his flurry of punches proved too much for his South Korean opponent Park Sungkeun, which forced the referee to stop the contest in the second round.
A second medal eluded India in the swimming competitions as its men's 4x100m medley relay team finished a disappointing sixth in the final.
The quartet of Rehan Poncha, Sandeep Sejwal, M Badrinath (who replaced Virdhawal Khade in the finals) and Aaron D'Souza clocked 3:52.97s.
In squash, the duo of Saurav Ghosal and Siddharth Suchde won their respective second round matches in the men's event, while Chennai girls Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinappa thrashed their rivals with identical 3-0 scorelines to make it to the last-eight stage of the individual events.
Indian golfer Rashid Khan brought home an improved card of four-under 68 to lie tied third after the second round of Asian Games' individual golf competition. Rashid sank as many as seven birdies against three bogeys to take his two-day total to five-under 139, three strokes behind the leader Luis Miguel Tabuena of Philippines.
India's campaign in table tennis ended with star paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal and Anthony Amalraj bowing out in the pre-quarterfinals of the men's singles.
Sharath struggled for 28 minutes before going down 9-11 4-11 7-11 10-12 11-6 to Korea's Sang Eun, while Amalraj was taught a ping pong lesson by Chinese Taipei's Chih Yuan who thrashed the Indian 6-11 10-12 5-11 1-11 in just 18 minutes.
Shamini Kumaresan too made an exit in women's singles after losing to Sayaka Hirano of Japan 7-11 5-11 11-7 7-11 11-7 7-11 in the second round.
Commonwealth Games gold medallist men's doubles pair of Sharath and Subhajit Saha too could not cross the last 16 hurdle as they were spanked 0-3 by Korean combination of Jungwoo Lee and Sang Eun Oh.
Indian women suffered a 0-3 drubbing at the hands of North Korea in their opening match of the volleyball while the campaign ended in the sepaktakraw event with both the men's and women's team losing their third consecutive group matches at Haizhu sports centre.