India’s men’s hockey team broke a 12-year Olympics jinx by winning their opening group league encounter, but tennis star Leander Paes’s dream of a second medal in the Games history went up in smoke after he and doubles partner Rohan Bopanna crashed out in round one, here today.
The day commenced promisingly when army rower Dattu Baban Bhokanal entered the quarterfinals in men’s single sculls by finishing third in his heat. Elsewhere women shooters Ayonika Paul and Apurvi Chandela put up a flop show to crash out of the 10m air rifle final while paddlers Mouma Das and Manika Batra also made an early exit by losing their preliminary round encounters. In men’s hockey it was drag-flick experts Rupinder Pal Singh (2 goals) and V R Raghunath (1) who saved the day for India against minnows Ireland to break the poor sequence of opening game losses in Olympics going back to Athens in 2004. The Indian tennis pair of Paes and Bopanna, not the best of friends by any stretch of imagination, were outclassed by their Polish rivals Marcin Matkowski and Lukasz Kubot 4-6 6-7 (6-8). The day’s proceedings started on a promising note when 25-year-old Pune-based armyman Bhokanal ended up third in the first heat of the day by finishing the 2000m race in 7 minutes and 21.67 seconds behind Angel Fournier Rodriguez of Cuba (7:06.89) and Mexico’s Juan Carlos Cabrera (7:08.27). Chandela shot an overall 411.6 to finish 34th out 51 competitors while Paul finished further down in 47th place with a total score of 403 in the 10m air rifle event in which China’s Li Du set a new Olympic record of 420.7 to top the qualification stage.
Later World no 150 Mouma’s challenge was lukewarm and short-lived as the Indian veteran, in her second Olympics, lost to world No 58 Daniela Dodean Monteiro of Romania 2-11, 7-11, 7-11, 3-11. Debutant Manika, on the other hand, put up a good fight before going down to her 60th-ranked Polish rival Katarzyna Franc-Grzybowska 2-4 (12-10 6-11 12-14 11-8 4-11 12-14) in 48 minutes in another preliminary round clash.
In the men’s singles, Achanta Sharath Kamal and Soumyajit Ghosh will play their first round matches later in the day.
It is the first time that four Indian paddlers had qualified for the Summer Games. (PTI)
