Sania-Prarthana settles for bronze

PTI INCHEON, SEPTEMBER 28 INDIAN pair of Sania Mirza and Prarthana Thombare settled for a bronze after losing their women’s doubles semifinal to Chinese Taipei’s Chin Wei Chan and Su Wei Hsiehin in the Asian Games, in Incheon on Sunday. The fifth seeded Indian combo put up a brave fight before going down 6-7 (1-7), 6-2, 10-4 to the Chinese Taipei duo, seeded second, at the Yeorumul Tennis Courts. Sania and Prarthana took the courts and toiled hard for an hour and 35 minutes but at the end failed to make it to the finals. Both the pairs fought hard in the opening frame to take the set to a tiebreaker. The Taipei duo finally managed to win the set after nearly an hour’s play. The Indians, however, came back strongly in the second set and managed to prevail over their higher ranked opponents in just 32 minutes. But the deciding set turned out to be a cake-walk for the Taipei combination as they took barely 10 minutes to seal it 10-4 and draw the curtains on the tie. Earlier, Yuki Bhambri clinched India’s lone singles’ medal in tennis at the ongoing Asian Games, settling for a bronze in the men’s event after unforced errors cost him the semifinal clash against Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka on Saturday. A profligate Yuki lost the match 6-3, 2-6, 1-6 in one hour and 46 minutes. The Indian started brilliantly and took a little over half hour to pocket the opening set but the match turned on its head in the very next set. The Japanese raised his game, helped by the sudden surge in the number of unforced errors committed by the Indian. In the end, it was a case of missed opportunities for Yuki, who settled for a third-place finish. In the previous edition of the Games, Somdev Devvarman had won India’s maiden men’s singles gold.