Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth won their respective singles matches, while Satwik Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa triumphed in the mixed doubles to help India outclass Malaysia in the final and clinch the gold medal in the Mixed Team badminton gold medal match at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast on Monday.
Saina got the better of Malaysia’s Soniia Cheah in the women’s singles to seal India’s 4-1 win in the Badminton Mixed Team event final.
Rankireddy and Ponnappa gave India the perfect start as they got the better of Peng Soon Chang and Liu Ying Gho 21-14, 15-21, 21-15 in the mixed doubles.
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World No. 2 Kidambi Srikanth then routed Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei 21-17, 21-14 in the men’s singles to put India firmly in the driver’s seat with a 2-0 lead.
Malaysia kept their hopes alive as they won the men’s doubles as Shem Goh and Wee Kiong Tan beat the Indian men’s double pairing of Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty 15-21, 20-22 and to reduce India’s lead to 2-1.
But Saina sealed the issue with her win in the women’s singles, though she was made to work hard for her 21-11, 19-21, 21-9 victory as India’s claimed their 10th gold medal of the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Mehuli Ghosh won the silver medal in the 10 metres Air Rifle, after a shoot off with Singapore’s Martina Lindsay Veloso, the eventual gold medallist, while Apurvi Chandela won the bronze medal.
The 17-year Ghosh shot an excellent 10.9 to take the final into a shoot-ff with Singapore’s Martina Lindsay Veloso, the eventual gold medallist, with a Games’ record score of 247.2.
Ghosh also aggregated a record 247.2 but a 9.9 in the shoot-off put paid to her hopes of claiming the top prize, as Veloso fired a 10.3.
Defending champion Chandela totalled 225.3 to finish third on the podium.
Boxing: Kaushik, Solanki enter last 8
India’s Manish Kaushik beat Trinidad and Tobago’s Michael Alexander to enter men’s 60kg quarter-finals.
Another boxer, Gaurav Solanki also advanced to the last eight stage after his victory against Ghana’s Akimos Annang Ampiah in the men’s 52kg.
Tejaswin Shankar enters high jump final
National record holder Tejaswin Shankar advanced to the finals of the Commonwealth Games high jump competition after finishing ninth in the qualifying round.
Shankar finished a joint fifth in group A and ninth overall. The Indian cleared 2.21m in final analysis after starting out at 2.10m. None of the competitors in fray could touch the official mark set at 2.27m with 2.21m being the best effort by the top 12, who made the cut for the finals scheduled on April 14.
The 21-year-old Shankar is a Youth Commonwealth Games gold-medallist. He had qualified for the Games by claiming a national record of 2.28m during the Federation Cup last month.
Among others who advanced were Australian cricketer Mitchell Starc’s younger brother Brandon Starc, a crowd favourite.
In the women’s 400m heats, India’s Hima Das made the semifinals with a timing of 52.11sec, which left her 8th in the overall standings. However, P R Machettira failed to move ahead, clocking 53.72sec in her heat to finish 24h overall.
