Paris, July 27 (IANS) In what was expected to be a comfortable encounter, India’s Harmeet Desai brushed aside Jordanian paddler Zaid Abo Yaman with a 4-0 win (11-7, 11-9, 11-5, 11-5) in the preliminary round of the men’s singles table tennis competition at the Olympic Games here on Saturday.

Desai, who was a pivotal figure in the gold-winning team competition at the Commonwealth Games in 2018 and 2022, dealt with the WR 538 player, as he sealed the game in just 30 minutes.

It will be a tough next encounter for Desai as he will take on home favourite and World Ranked 5 Felix Lebrun on Sunday in the Round of 64.

There are a lot of hopes from India’s table tennis squad at the Games with this Olympics marking the first time when both the men’s and women’s teams have qualified for the team’s competitions.

Desai alongside Achanta Sharath Kamal, Manav Thakkar, and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran will team up in the latter half of the Games after the conclusion of the individual events.

–IANS

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Paris, July 27 (IANS) World No.2 Novak Djokovic began the hunt for his maiden gold medal on a strong note as he defeated Australia’s Matthew Ebden 6-0, 6-1 in the opening game. Though this is the Serbian’s fifth appearance at the Games, Djokovic has never bettered the bronze medal that he won on his debut at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

It only took 54 minutes for the 24-time Grand Slam winner to defeat Ebden, who was playing his first singles game in two years.

Djokovic was originally set to enter the tournament as the No.2 seed but due to the late withdrawal by World No.1 Jannik Sinner, was handed the number one seeding.

Meanwhile, Carlos Alcaraz, who recently won the French Open at this venue earlier this year, is in the hunt to become only the second player after Rafael Nadal (2008) to win the French Open and Olympics single title in the same year.

Alcaraz defeated Lebanon’s Hady Habib 6-3, 6-1 in a comfortable encounter. He will partner up with Rafael Nadal in the men’s doubles against Argentina.

–IANS

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Paris, July 27 (IANS) India’s Lakshya Sen defeated Kevin Cordon of Guatemala 21-8, 22-20 in 42 minutes in a men’s singles Group L match of badminton competition to make a winning start in the 33rd Olympic Games here on Saturday.

After winning the first game easily, Lakshya faced a tough fight from World No. 41 Cordon and was on the verge of losing the second game, facing five match points at 16-20.

However, the Indian shuttler won six points in a row as he came back strongly to win the second game 22-20 to clinch victory, avoiding playing the third game.

It was a morale-boosting victory for Lakshya as Cordon was one of the stars at Tokyo, storming into the semifinals before narrowly missing the bronze medal.

Lakshya is in a tough group with World No.3 Jonatan Christie of Indonesia and Julien Carraggi of Belgium as the other contenders to top the group.

–IANS

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Paris, July 27 (IANS) The Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics was unique and historic, which saw unprecedented events take place. Breaking away from the traditional format, it was held outside a stadium and contingents took to boats and ships on the Seine River for the Parade of the Nations. However, the Indian Olympic Association IOA President and Olympian PT Usha, however, believes that the event did not focus enough on the athletes.

“In the opening ceremony, the organisers should have focused more on athletes. This is an athlete’s event, they should give more importance to players as the attention was on them for only a few seconds, otherwise, everything was good,” PT Usha told IANS here on Saturday.

Usha, who won six medals at the 1985 Asian Championships in Jakarta, bagged 13 gold medals in ATF competitions between 1983 and 1989 and also claimed four gold medals and one silver in the track & field competitions at the 10th Asian Games in Seoul, South Korea, still one of the best performances by an athlete in Continental event. Despite her unprecedented success, Usha was not able to secure a medal at the Olympics with her best performance coming in the 1984 edition in Los Angeles when she clocked 55.42s in the women’s 400m hurdles to miss the bronze medal by a wafer-thin margin.

The ‘Golden Girl’ of Indian athletics on Saturday suggested that she could not win a medal at the Olympics due to lack of exposure during her time, a problem that athletes these days do not face.

“For me, there was no exposure at all, if I could have gotten three-four races outside Europe I would have won a medal. I lost the medal due to a lack of experience and exposure. In the last 10-20 years, players have been getting a lot of facilities.”

“The government is spending a lot of money and that’s why we are getting the results. In the Asian Games, we won 107 medals and now we are hoping to do better than Tokyo (2020 Olympics),” concluded the IOA chief.

India returned from Tokyo with their best-ever performance, winning seven medals including a historic gold by Neeraj Chopra in men’s javelin throw.

–IANS

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Paris, July 27 (IANS) Manu Bhaker gave the Indian shooting contingent a reason to smile in the end, qualifying for the final of the Women’s 10m Air Pistol event on Day One of the Paris 2024 Olympics Shooting competition, at the French National Shooting Centre range in Chateauroux.

Manu’s qualifying score of 580 gave her third spot in the 44-strong field, as the top eight including topper Veronika Major (582) of Hungary, come back on Sunday for the final. This would be the Indian pistol ace’s first Olympic final.

On what was turning out to be a day of near misses for India, Manu’s performance in the final event of the day brought confidence. Manu shot consistently well throughout the 60-shot qualification, staying above the cut line for the entire length. Compatriot Rhythm Sangwan shot 573 to finish 15th and missed out by four points.

Earlier, both Indian pairs in the fray in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event, the first medal event of the Games, could not cross the qualification hurdle.

Ramita and Arjun Babuta fought hard to shoot 628.7 and finish sixth in the 28-team field, as the top four scores (China, Korea, Kazakhstan, Germany) made it to the gold and bronze medal matches respectively. Olympian Elavenil Valarivan and Sandeep Singh, the second Indian pair in the field, shot 626.3 to finish 12th.

The setbacks continued for India as Sarabjot Singh in the 10m Air Pistol Men, agonisingly missed making the medal round, tallying the same score of 577 with two others. However German shooter Robin Walter grabbed the coveted eighth and final qualifying spot, having landed one more shot in the inner 10-ring than the Indian, who bowed out in ninth place.

His teammate, Arjun Singh Cheema fought valiantly as well and was even up to third at one stage, finishing on a score of 574 for an 18th spot in the qualifying round.

Sheng Liaho and Huang Yuting beat Korea’s Park Ha-Jun and Keum Ji-Hyeon 16-12 in the decider to claim the Paris Olympics’ first gold medal. Kazakhstan won the bronze through the pair of Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev, who outclassed Germany’s Anna Janssen and Maximilian Ulbrich of Germany 17-5 in the bronze decider.

–IANS

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