Thaindian News

Guangzhou, Nov 21 (IANS) Sania Mirza lost in the women’s singles semifinals to settle for a bronze but kept herself in contention for a gold in the mixed doubles event when she and Vishnu Vardhan cruised into the final in the Asian Games tennis here Sunday.

Sania and Vishnu overcame stiff resistance from Thailand’s top seeded pair of Tamarine Tanasugarn and Sanchai Ratiwatana for a 6-3, 6-7(3), 1-0 upset in an hour and 35 minutes at the Aoti Tennis Centre.

The sixth-seeded Indian play Yung Jan Chan and Tsung Hua Yang of Chinese Taipei for the gold medal.

Sania, however, could not continue her winning run in the singles. The 166th-ranked Indan lost to third-seeded Uzbek Akgul Amanmuradova 6-7(7), 3-6, 4-6 in a marathon two hours and 49 minutes. Sania was a women’s singles silver medallist in the previous edition at Doha.

Meanwhile, Somdev Devvarman assured himself of a second medal by entering the men’s singles semifinals. He later made it to the doubles final, combining with Sanam Singh.

Somdev beat China’s Ze Zhang 6-4, 6-4 in the quarterfinal. Somdev was down 1-4 against sixth-seeded Ze before winning eight games in a row to put it beyond the Chinese.

The Indian played a power-packed game from the backcourt and also rushed to the net hitting some crisp volleys.

Ze made a brief comeback, breaking Somdev in the fourth game of the second set, but failed to sustain the momentum as the Indian wrapped up the match in nearly two hours at the Aoti Tennis Center.

The win has assured the Indian, of atleast a bronze. Somdev, the 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, next plays Japan’s Tatsuma Ito.

Somdev, later partnering Sanam, entered the men’ doubles final defeating South Korea’s Jae Cho-Soong and Hyun Joon Kim 6-3, 7-5. The sixth-seeded Indians next play second-seeded Chinese Maoxin Gong and Zhe Li for the gold.

However, it was end of road for seventh-seeded Karan Rastogi, who lost 2-6, 6-4, 5-7 to top seed Dennis Istomin of Uzbekistan in the quarterfinal.