Guangzhou: Somdev Devvarman created history by becoming the first Indian to win a gold medal in the men's singles tennis event of the Asian Games while discus thrower Krishna Poonia bagged a bronze as India claimed three more medals to maintain their 8th spot on the 11th day of competitions here on Tuesday.
Second seed Somdev, who had won a gold in the men's doubles event alongwith Sanam Singh on Tuesday, upset top seed and world number 44 Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan 6-1, 6-2 in the lop-sided summit clash here to achieve the historic feat.
Poonia, who had bagged the gold in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, put up a below par show in women's discus to take the bronze while heptathlete G G Pramila also secured a bronze on an otherwise disappointing day for the Indians.
It was heartbreak for the Indian men's hockey team after they suffered a shocking 3-4 defeat at the hands of lower ranked Malaysia in the semifinal while the shooters, cylists and grapplers also failed to make much of an impact.
With the addition of three medals, India's medal haul climbed to 7 gold, 12 silver and 20 bronze to maintain their 8th position for the third successive day. India had finished tenth on the medal rostrum in the last edition of the Games in Doha.
China was miles ahead on top of the medals table with a whopping tally of 165-85-79 while South Korea (64-55-74) and Japan (34-64-68) kept the second and third positions respectively.
The spotlight was on young Somdev as he entered history books with his superb win in the final over the top seed Uzbek who seemed totally off-colour.
Just last month, Somdev had won men's singles gold at the Commonwealth Games and has been the face of India on the ATP Tour in singles for quite some time.
India had three bronze medals in men's singles to show so far at the Games with Leander Paes (Hiroshima in 1994), Mahesh Bhupathi (Bangkok in 1998) and Prahlad Srinath (Bangkok in 1998) winning them in the last decade.
In total, Somdev won three medals at this edition of the Games as he had earlier won a bronze in team event as well.
India rounded off its tennis campaign with five medals, two more than what the country had got at the Doha Asian Games in 2006.
India's hopes of winning a gold medal in men's hockey event came crashing down after they suffered a 3-4 defeat against Malaysia.
Malaysia, ranked 15th in the world, pipped India through a golden goal after both sides were tied 3-3 at the end of regulation time. Malaysia set up a title clash with Pakistan who knocked out defending champions South Korea in the first semifinal.
After the spectacular start to India's campaign in athletics, the last two days have been quite a damp squib.
Poonia, who had won a bronze in Doha Asian Games four years ago as well as gold in last month's Commonwealth Games, was expected to win at least a medal going by the past performances of the seven throwers in the field and it was just a question of the colour of the medal.
The expected three-way contest among Poonia, Doha Asian Games gold medallist Song Aimin of China and another Chinese Li Yangfeng, however, turned out to be a two-way affair as Poonia could not improve upon her 61.94m which she achieved in her first attempt.
Poonia's throw on Tuesday was more than her CWG gold-winning 61.51m effort but well below her personal best as well as season's best of 63.69m. Pramila then added the second bronze after finishing third in heptathlon with 5415 points.
Indian women were on course for a chess medal as they scored an easy victory over Bangladesh to remain on joint top along with China after six rounds of the chess competition.
Harika Dronavalli settled for a draw against her lower-rated opponent Shamima Akter Liza in the first game before her three compatriots registered comfortable wins to guide India to a 3.5-0.5 victory.
In the men's section, India drubbed Qatar 3.5-0.5 to be in the third position with eight points.
In archery, Deepika Kumari missed out on a medal as she lost to Kwon Un Sil of North Korea in the bronze-medal play-off of the women's individual archery event.
Deepika began the day by thrashing Rand Almashhandani of Iraq 5-1 in her opening match and then beat Indonesia's Erwina Safitri 7-3 to reach the quarterfinals.
The Indian continued her winning run and defeated Chinese Taipei's Tan Ya Ting 6-4 before losing to Yun Okhee of South Korea in the shoot-off. In the bronze-medal play-off, Deepika lost to Kwon Un Sil 2-6. Another Indian in the fray, Rimil Buriuly bowed out of the competition in the second round.
Rimil started on a winning note as she blanked Zahra Dehghanabnavi 4-0 in her opening round but was outplayed by her Taipei rival 2-6 in the next.
Dharmender Dalal cut a sorry figure as he lost his bronze medal play-off match in the men's 120kg Greco-Roman wrestling competitions to round off another disappointing day for Indian grapplers.
Having won his repechage round 1 bout against Chivinn Chum of Cambodia, Dharmender set up a fight against Iraq's Salman Ali in the bronze medal bout but he could hardly pose a challenge to his opponent, going down 0-3 in the encounter.
Another Indian grappler Vinod Kumar bowed out of the competition much earlier after he was outplayed 0-3 in the opening round by Tsogtbaatar Damdinbazar of Mangolia.
In squash, Indian eves qualified for the semifinals of the team event despite a 0-3 drubbing at the hands of Hong Kong while the men's team made the last-four grade with a crushing 3-0 win over South Korea here on Tuesday.
The women team advanced to semifinals courtesy their second place finish behind Hong Kong in Pool B. They face Pool A topper Malaysia in the semifinals on Wednesday.
The men's team came up with a fine show to be on top of the table in pool B. They are scheduled to play Malaysia in their last league encounter later in the day and the outcome of the that match will decide their next opponent team.
India and Malaysia, sitting second, are tied on 12 points but are on top because of better game win-lose difference.
Indian shooters will have a tough task at hand to finish on the podium after all three of them ended day one of the skeet qualification round at the middle of the points table.
Mairaj Ahmad Khan was placed 15th, followed closely by compatriots Allan Daniel Peoples on 16th and Smit Singh on 18th - all three of them with same 46 points - with one more day to go on Wednesday. Three more rounds will be played on Wednesday.
The India trio were at fifth with 138 (46+46+46) points in the skeet team event.
In the women's individual skeet event, Arti Rao Singh crashed out after finishing eighth in the qualification round with a score of 65. Only the top six advance to the final round.
In cycling, Indian eves came a cropper in the Individual road race competition with Mahita Mohan and Pana Chaudhary finishing 20th and 26th in the event.
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