NEW DELHI: Wrestler Alka Tomar won gold in women's 59kg freestyle event to increase India's gold tally to 18 in the Commonwealth Games on Friday.
Earlier, shooter Vijay Kumar won gold in singles 25m rapid fire pistol men, while Gurpreet Singh won the bronze.
Indian shooters Gagan Narang and Imran Hassan Khan also won gold in men's 50 metre rifle 3 positions. The Indian pair set up a news Games record.
India won their 15th gold medal in the Games when the hosts' women archers beat England in the final of the Recurve team competition.
The Indian team, comprising Dola Banerjee, Bombayla Devi and Deepika Kumari beat England 207-206 to clinch the gold.
India's medal winners for Friday
Earlier, shooter Vijay Kumar won gold in singles 25m rapid fire pistol men, while Gurpreet Singh won the bronze.
Indian shooters Gagan Narang and Imran Hassan Khan also won gold in men's 50 metre rifle 3 positions. The Indian pair set up a news Games record.
India won their 15th gold medal in the Games when the hosts' women archers beat England in the final of the Recurve team competition.
The Indian team, comprising Dola Banerjee, Bombayla Devi and Deepika Kumari beat England 207-206 to clinch the gold.
India's medal winners for Friday
Gold (3) | Silver (2) | Bronze (1) |
Dola Banerjee, Bombayla Devi, Deepika Kumari (Women Recurve team, Archery) | Mansher Singh, Manavjeet Singh Sandhu (Men's double trap shooting) | Gurpreet Singh (Singles 25m rapid fire pistol men) |
Gagan Narang and Imran Hassan Khan (Men's 50 metre rifle 3) | Babita Kumari (51kg freestyle wrestling) | |
Vijay Kumar (Singles 25m rapid fire pistol men) |
Later in the day, the race for grabbing the immediate spot behind Australia is expected to become hotter.
With Australia seemingly having taken an unassailable lead with 39 gold in their kitty, the race for finishing No. 2 in the Games has narrowed down to a three-horse race between second-placed India, No.3 Canada and No. 4 England.
While India, dominating the shooting range and also doing well in disciplines like wrestling and weightlifting, had 14 gold going into the day's events, England were two behind the hosts while Canada were one gold further adrift.
In table tennis, the Indian women are up against Singapore in the tie for the gold medal and the men are up against England for a spot in the final. Preliminary rounds of the individual events are to commence.
In badminton India are up against Malaysia in the mixed team final to settle the gold and silver medals.
The members of the strong boxing squad would look to advance further in their endeavour to attain medal standard.
Sania, Devvarman reach finals of CWG tennis
Sania Mirza rallied from a set down to win her semifinal and advance to the final of the first ever Commonwealth Games tennis tournament. She has almost fulfilled expectations in India, which will also feature in the men's final after Somdev Devvarman easily beat Australia's Matthew Ebden 6-3, 6-1
in the semifinals on Friday. But Devvarman missed a spot in the doubles final. He and Rohan Bopanna lost 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 to English pair Ross Hutchins and Ken Skupski.
The second-seed Mirza showed enormous staying power in the heat to beat sixth-seeded Olivia Rogowska of Australia 1-6, 6-4, 6-4. "My heart is beating a big fast right now. It feels pretty good, yeah," said Mirza, India's top tennis player, after winning in front of a partisan home crowd that celebrated Rogowska's double faults.
India is favored to win the most medals at the tournament in the absence of top eligible players, including Andy Murray from Scotland plus former No. 1-ranked Lleyton Hewitt and his fellow Australian Samantha Stosur, the French Open finalist.
After losing the first set, Mirza showed more control in the second with the scores at 4-4. A crosscourt winner in the ninth game saw Mirza go up 40-30 on Rogowska's serve to eventually secure a break. She held in the 10th game to take the set. Serving for the set, Mirza delivered an ace to go up 30-15. Rogowska returned the next serve long and returned the set point serve wide.
"I knew she wouldn't win otherwise she would have been in the top 50," said Mirza. "When you are not timing the ball well you have to come up with something different. I am very happy that I fought hard."
Mirza broke to open the third set and raced to a 4-1 lead before Rogowsksa won three straight games. Mirza held her serve at love in the 10th game, boosted by a boisterous Indian crowd. "It is great to have the home crowd behind you but there is a lot of pressure as well," she said. In the men's singles, Devvarman needed only 71 minutes to advance.
Ebden dropped his serve three times in the first set, including the opening game, and twice in the second. Devvarman's next opponent will also be an Australian - the other semifinal is an all-Australian match between second-seeded Peter Luczak and fifth-seeded Greg Jones.
Devvarman is also in contention in the men's doubles and is scheduled to play semifinals with Rohan Bopanna later Friday.
Saina eyes gold, India best-ever medal haul in CWG
Top seed Saina Nehwal will be eyeing to win the maiden gold medal by a woman shuttler as top Indian shuttlers will look to reap a rich medal haul in the individual event of the 19th Commonwealth Games starting on Saturday.
Apart from Saina, all eyes will also be on the star mixed doubles pair of V Diju and Jwala Gutta.
India made its maiden finals appearance in the mixed team event defeating England 3-0 yesterday and it would surely boost their confidence to aim for greater glory at the Siri Fort sport complex from Saturday.
India have so far won two golds in the men's singles, but the yellow metal has always eluded the women shuttlers with Aparna Popat, winning a silver and a bronze in 1998 and 2002 editions respectively.
But come October 3 and a billion heart will throb in unison for world number three Saina as she battles for supremacy against the Malaysians, English and Singaporeans.
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