Team India had a heartbreaking day in Badminton and Shooting on Tuesday. The day started on a bright note as Indian shooters Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary topped their mixed team air pistol qualification Stage 1 but they finished 7th in Stage 2 to miss medal events. The day then continued to worsen for Indian shooting as Divyansh/Elavenil and Anjum/Deepak also failed to make it to rifle final.
In a morale-boosting news for hockey fans, the men in blue gave a superb performance on Tuesday as they beat Spain 3-0. Meanwhile, boxer Lovlina Borgohain advanced to quarterfinals and is a step away from winning a medal. She will face Nien-Chin Chen of Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinal on Friday (July 30).
Even though shuttlers Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won on Tuesday, they finished third in Group A, failing to make it to quarters. The 39-year-old Achanta Sharath Kamal ended India’s table tennis campaign, going down in the third round to reigning champion Ma Long. Sailor Vishnu Saravanan improved his overnight rank of 25 to 22.
India’s Tennis campaign has come to a premature end at this Olympics. Nagal and Mirza needed a few pull-outs for them to be able to compete in the mixed doubles, but that was not to be. Ankita and Sania have already been knocked out, while Nagal gave a great display of himself yet again, before losing to World Number 2 Daniil Medvedev.
With Sharath Kamal’s defeat at the hands of Ma Long (though he did manage to take the second game against the Chinese living legend), India’s TT campaign at Tokyo 2020 has come to an end.
It was a commendable performance, with two Indian women managing to cross the first round – something that has never happened before. Achanta Sharath Kamal, at 39, proved he still has what it takes – with a warrior’s headgear still firmly in place – even though Sathiyan, of whom there had been immense expectations, could not deliver on Olympics debut. It has been an impressive campaign for the Indians at TT in Tokyo, but the Chinese wall is still proving to be impenetrable. Onwards to Paris. With a Sharath Kamal, in his 40s, still leading the charge