DAY-2 PREVIEW–
Another day started with the hope of adding up medals in the tally but was challenging for India to win. The first day began with the Mirabai Charu’s ultimate start by winning silver, but couldn’t keep the same spirit on day 2. Though PV Sindhu won her first-round easily and reserved her place in the next round. Manika Batra also won in the second round and won under an hour. Mary Kom also won by defeating Miguelina Hernandez Garcia in the round of 32 and entered in the pre-quarters.
In Men’s lightweight double sculls: Arjun Lal and Arvind Singh reached semifinal A/B by coming 3rd place in this round. Yet, on the other hand, Indian shooters disappointed India by their performance, as they kept struggling in the search for medals. Manu Bhaker (12th position) and Yashaswini Deswal (13th position) bow out in the qualification round. Women’s doubles tennis: Sania Mirza and Ankita Raina lost to Ukraine’s Nadiia Kichenok and Liudmyla Kichenok (6-0, 6-7, 8-10). Sathiyan Gnanasekaran lost 7-11, 11-7, 11-4, 11-5, 9-11, 10-12, 6-11 to Hong Kong’s Lam Siu Hang. Pranati Nayak finished at 16th position with a total score of 42.565.
Sailing, Nethra Kumanan 27th overall after two races (out of 10). Divyansh and Deepak bow out as they finished 32nd and 26th respectively. Maana Patel clocked 1:05.20 in the women’s 100m backstroke heats, finishing 39th overall. She failed to qualify for the semis Olympic.
Srihari Nataraj finished 27th overall in the men’s 100m backstroke heats and failed to qualify for the semis. He clocked 54.31s.
-ABOUT THE MATCHES
– Men’s lightweight double sculls: Indian Duo Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh qualified for the semifinals of the men’s lightweight double sculls repechage at the Tokyo Olympics here on Sunday.
The Indian duo clocked 6:51.36 to finish in third place at the Sea Forest Waterway, the semifinals will be on July 27.
-BADMINTON: Current world champion P V Sindhu made an excellent start to her Olympics this year, thrashing Israel’s Ksenia Polikarpova in straight games in the women’s singles group J match here on day-2.
The 26-year-old Indian seeded sixth, beating the 58th ranked Polikarpova 21-7 21-10 in a lop-sided opening match. She defeated her in just 37 minutes.
-TABLE TENNIS: 11 minutes into her second-round match, Manika Batra seemed to be much tensed. Rarely does she betray any emotion, but the cameras managed to catch her frown, as she silently sipped water, trying to figure out how to overcome the 2-0 deficit at the hands of World No 32 Margaryta Pesotska 2-0. The answer wasn’t what she was doing wrong. Rather it was what she wasn’t doing.
In the first two games, it was the second part of her game that she didn’t follow. In a match that lasted 57 minutes at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, the World No 62 ended up overcoming the deficit to pull off an upset 4-3 (4-11, 4-11, 11-7, 12-10, 8-11, 11-5, 11-7) win for Batra understood the changes she needed to bring into the match from the third game. She started rallies slowly, soaking in Pesotska’s shots and sending them back with plentiful spin but not much speed – placement was key. Just when it seemed the Ukrainian was about to find a footing in the rally, Batra would start whipping in faster backhands and forehands.
That’s what happened when the Ukrainian hit a forehand long on match point to send Batra into the third round in the Olympics.
-BOXING: Mary Kom began her Tokyo 2020 campaign with a round of 32 wins in the 51kg category but fellow boxer Manish Kaushik (63kg category) faced an early exit with a loss in the round of 32. She entered the pre-quarters.
-Women’s 10m air pistol: Indian shooters struggled under a lot of pressure for a second successive day as Manu Bhaker and Yashaswini Singh Deswal failed to make the finals of the women’s 10m air pistol event in the Tokyo Olympics here on Sunday.
But she was not consistent enough to challenge the top guns, bowing out in 13th place with scores of 94, 98, 94, 97, 96, and 95 for an aggregate of 574.
Having started with an impressive 98, including five 10s in the first series, Manu finished the event in 12th place with a total score of 575.
The problem with her gun saw her lose five minutes but she came back to manage a 95. The cut-off was 577.
-TENNIS: Top-ranked Ash Barty has been upset by 48th-ranked Spanish opponent Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-4, 6-3 in the first round of the Tokyo tennis tournament.
It was Barty’s Olympic singles debut. She won a doubles match with Australian teammate Storm Sanders on Saturday. Sania and Raina were running away with the contest after bageling their opponents but in a dramatic turnaround, the Kichenok sisters came back from the dead to pull off a 0-6 7-6(0) 10-8 win at court 11 of Ariake Tennis Centre. But disappointed India by losing the very first game.
-GYMNASTIC: India’s lone gymnast at Tokyo Olympics, Pranati Nayak failed to qualify for the All-Round finals of the Artistic Gymnastics competition here on Sunday.
The 26-year-old from West Bengal recorded a total score of 42.565 over the four categories — floor exercise, vault, uneven, bars, and balance beam — at the Ariake Gymnastics center.
-TABLE TENNIS MEN’S SINGLES: Indian table tennis player G Sathiyan suffered an upset defeat at the hands of lower-ranked Siu Hang Lam to make an early exit from the men’s singles competition at the Tokyo Games, here on Sunday.
Ranked 38 and seeded 26th, Sathiyan had a commanding 3-1 lead but lost four games in a row to lose 3-4 to the 95th ranked Hong Kong player. The first game was tight but the Hong Kong player pulled away from 6-6 with his forehand at work.
Sathiyan switched gears after the opening game with ease. He hit a forehand out to be down by match point. Lam sealed it when Sathiyan made a big error and resulted in a loss.
–SWIMMING: Nethra Kumanan 27th overall after two races (out of 10). : Divyansh and Deepak bow out as they finished 32nd and 26th respectively. Maana Patel clocked 1:05.20 in the women’s 100m backstroke heats, finishing 39th overall. She failed to qualify for the semis.
Srihari Nataraj finished 27th overall in the men’s 100m backstroke heats and failed to qualify for the semis. He clocked 54.31s.
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