Diya Chitale and Yashaswini Ghorpade win Asian Games women’s doubles table tennis round two match

The Indian women’s doubles team of Diya Chitale and Yashaswini Ghorpade secured a 3-0 victory against Iran in their round two match at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya on Thursday.

They defeated the Iranian pair Setayash Iloukhani and Mashid Ashtari with a dominant scoreline of 11-2, 11-2, 11-4, according to ESPN.

In swimming, India’s Benediction Beniston finished fifth in his men’s 50 metres butterfly heat with a time of 23.87 seconds. Across all heats, he ranked 12th, with only the top 10 qualifying for the final. Benediction remains a reserve for the final.

In the Canoe Sprint women’s single 200 metres semifinal, Megha Pradeep finished fourth with a time of 51.093 seconds, 1.66 seconds behind the leader. Only the top three advanced to the final, resulting in her elimination.

In athletics, competing in the heptathlon 100 metres hurdles, Anamika Aneesh Kozhinjaparambil finished fifth and last in her heat, clocking 14.80 seconds for 868 points. In another heat, Pooja also finished fifth and last with a time of 14.61 seconds, earning 894 points.

Indian wushu athlete Roshibina Devi won her second consecutive silver medal at the Asian Games after losing to China’s Zhang Xiaoyu in the women’s sanda 60 kg final on Thursday. Roshibina, who was also a silver medallist at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, lost both rounds 0-5; Zhang secured the match 2-0, as reported by ESPN.

Having previously earned a bronze medal in the 2018 Asian Games, Roshibina becomes the first Indian woman to win three consecutive medals in wushu at the Asian Games. Her successful run in Japan included a victory over 2023 world champion Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy of Vietnam. She defeated Indonesia’s Thania Kusumaningtyas 2-0 in the semi-final to reach the final.

This medal marked India’s 14th at the ongoing Asian Games, comprising one gold, six silver, and seven bronze medals.

Earlier on Thursday, the Indian men’s double sculls team of Satnam Singh and Salman Khan won a bronze medal. They recorded a time of 6:13.25, finishing 3.48 seconds behind the gold medallists Yi Xudi and Nie Yide of China, and 2.76 seconds short of silver medallists Mekhrojbek Mamatkulov and Pavel Sorin, per ESPN.

Satnam and Salman held second place at the 500m, 1000m and 1500m marks before falling behind towards the finish, at one point trailing the Chinese pair by just half a second.

In the men’s singles sculls event, Balraj Panwar finished fourth, missing out on a medal. He maintained second place at the 500m, 1000m and 1500m checkpoints but was surpassed by Shakhboz Kholmurzaev of Uzbekistan and Tatsuya Sakurama of Japan in the final 500 metres. Balraj finished with a time of 6:54.80, eight seconds behind Sakurama and 15 seconds behind gold medallist Zhiwei Deng of China.

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