India assured of 2 bridge medals

Jakarta, Aug. 25: India were on Saturday assured of two medals in the debut sport of bridge in the Asian Games after the men’s team and mixed team reached the semifinals here.

After the qualification rounds, the men’s bridge team was placed fourth while the mixed team took the second spot.

The men’s bridge team was placed fourth after playing 13 qualification rounds while the mixed team finished on top after seven qualification rounds.

The top finishing team will play the fourth team while the second and third will take on each other in the semifinals.

Both the losing semifinalists will win a bronze and India are assured of at least two bronze medals from bridge. The supermixed team, however, failed to qualify for the semifinals. Pavitra through to boxing quarterfinal Meanwhile at Jakarta, Indian boxer Pavitra ( 60kg) advanced to the quarterfinals after out- classing Pakistan’s Rukhsana Perveen in a bout that did not go beyond the opening round.

Pavitra, who is a former National Games gold- medallist, was at her ferocious best in the contest, resulting in two knockdowns for Rukhsana in the first round.

After that, the referee didn’t take long to stop the contest in the Indian’s favour.

The score- sheet at that point was unanimously 10- 8 in Pavitra’s favour.

Teen Anish misses mark at shooting

A gold- medallist at the Commonwealth Games, 15year- old Indian shooter Anish Bhanwala produced a below- par performance to finish without a medal in the men’s 25m rapid fire air pistol event on Saturday.

Bhanwala, who had made history by winning a gold at the CWG in Gold Coast earlier this year, could not repeat Friday’s fine qualification performance on the second day of qualification.

He eventually failed to qualify for the finals, finishing ninth overall with a score of 576. Another Indian in the fray, Shivam Shukla, suffered a washout and ended 11th with 569.