India’s singles and men’s doubles players made a smooth start to their campaign advancing to the round of 16. However the contingent tasted their first defeat as well at the 18th Asian Games in Palembang, Indonesia on Monday.
Having got first round byes on Sunday, Indians had a busy day with matches in both singles and doubles.
In the men’s singles, second seed Ramanathan Ramkumar won the first set 6-0 against Wong Hong Kit but was stretched by the Hong Kong player in the second set before getting past 7-6 (4) on tie-break in a round of 32 match while Prajnesh Gunneswaran had it easy against Indonesia’s Rifqi M Fitriadi, winning 6-2, 6-0 to progress to the last 16.
In the women’s singles, Ankita Raina beat Beatrice Gumulya 6-2, 6-4 while Karman Kaur Thandi had little difficulty in getting past Mongolian Jargal Altansarnai, 6-1, 6-0.
In men’s doubles, top seeds Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan, who are gold medal contenders, beat the Indonesian pair of Ignatius Anthony Susanto and David Agung Susanto 6-3, 6-3.
The other pair of Ramanathan and Sumit Nagal, who formed a pairing at the last-minute, cleared the opening hurdle defeating Nepal’s Abhishek Batola and Samrakshy Bajracharya 6-1, 6-1.
However, there was disappointment for India in the women’s doubles as Rutuja Bhosale and Pranjala Yadlapalli lost to Thailand’s Peangtarn Plipuech and Nicha Lertpitaksinchai after winning the first set. They eventually went down 6-4, 3-6, 9-11. Prarthana Thombare and Raina, however, blanked Pakistan 6-0, 6-0 to notch up a comfortable win.
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