Virdhawal Khade's hopes of improving on his bronze medal in the Asian Games, suffered an unexpected jolt as he failed to make the 100m freestyle final here on Wednesday.
In a slow race in which he had none to push him to a better time, the 19-year-old Khade clocked 51.25 seconds that won him the third heat in the morning ahead of compatriot Aaron D'Souza (52.71) but placed him 13th in the overall list. D'Souza was 23rd in a field of 40.
For someone who has felt freestyle as his strong point in his young career so far, and had missed the 50m freestyle bronze by 0.03 seconds, Khade was quite confident that he would land a medal.
However, once he finished the race and turned to look at the giant display to see the timings, he put his hand on head, as he realised that he had not done enough to qualify for the final.
After a reaction time of 0.76 seconds, Khade had clocked 24.57 for the first 50. However, after the turn the others slackened and so did Khade with a time of 25.78.
Rehan Poncha clocked 2:8.55s in finishing 15th in the men's 200m individual medley.
Vijender advances
One of the bright stars of Indian sports, Vijender Singh defeated Yu Ting Yang of Chinese Taipei 9-2 to move into the quarterfinals of the 75 kg section in boxing at the Foshan Gymnasium.
After a slow start and being a point down at 1-2 in the second round, Vijender unleashed punches in a hurry to overwhelm his opponent.
From winning the bronze medal in the last edition in Doha in 2006, Vijender has grown in stature, winning the Olympics and world championships bronze medals in the last two years.
The current world No.1, Vijender will meet Deckjin Cho of Korea in the quarterfinals on November 20. The Korean had beaten Aliasker Bashirov of Turkmenistan 10-4 in the pre-quarterfinals.
The other Indian Vikas Krishan started strongly and cruised to an 8-1 points victory over Saylom Ardee of Thailand, to reach the pre-quarterfinals.
Krishan will meet Amangeldi Hudaybergenov of Turkmenistan in the next round on November 19.
Winning start
In tennis, it was a winning start in the men's doubles for Karan Rastogi and Vishnu Vardhan against Cheuk Wai Hui and Xiaopeng Lai of Hong Kong. The Indian pair won 6-1, 6-3 to set up a pre-quarterfinal against Young Jun Kim and Jai Min Seol of Korea who ousted the eighth-seeded Thai pair of Weerapat Doakmaiklee and Kittiphong Wachiramanowong.
In doubles however, Rushmi Chakravarthi and Poojashree Venkatesh lost 6-3, 6-1 to Misaki Doi and Ryoko Fuda of Japan in the first round. Sania Mirza and company will swing into action with the individual singles on Thursday.
