Sakshi settles for silver

Exploiting a weaker field, Sakshi Malik claimed a silver while Vinesh Phogat dominated her bronze medal play-off after losing to nemesis Mayu Mukaida as Indian women team registered its best-ever performance at the Asian Wrestling Championship, returning with eight medals here on Friday.

The Indian team had won only one gold medal before this edition but Divya, Pinki and Sarita Mor won three on the opening day. Nirmala Devi came out second best.

On Friday, Sakshi (65kg, silver), Vinesh (53kg, bronze) young Anshu Malik (57kg bronze) and Gursharan Preet kaur (72kg, bronze) added to India's tally.

Sakshi twice lost to Japan's Naomi Ruike -- in the opening round and the final -- to win her second silver at this event. She had grabbed a silver in 2017 also.

The Rio Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi, who has been struggling of late, lost her opening round 1-2 to Naomi and could not score a point in final, which she lost 0-2.

"She was not that strong but I just could not score many points against her. Initially I lost two points and that pegged me back," she said.

Sakshi overcame two weak opponents to eventually reach the final. She outplayed Korea's Ohyoung Ha in her second round, winning by technical superiority. In her semifinal against Uzbekistan's Nabira Esenbaeva, she led 5-0 but her rival pulled off consecutive two-point moves to make it 5-4.

Sakshi has been losing in closing stages of late but this time she managed to hold on to her narrow lead, surviving anxious last two seconds.

All eyes were on Vinesh, who yet again fell to Muakida to go out of the gold medal race but made a strong comeback to win then bronze medal play-off against Vietnam's Thi Ly Kieu, winning by technical superiority in the first period itself.

Vinesh struggled to break the strong defence of the Japanese.

In the non-Olympic 72kg, Gursharanpreet Kaur Mongloia's Tsevegmed Enkhbayar in the third place play-off to win her second medal at this championship.