The 23-year-old from Agartala soon drooped to the fourth position after Biles brilliant attempt and agonisingly missed out on a medal by 0.15 point margin.
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Long distance runner Lalita Babar kept India’s hopes alive by qualifying for the women’s 3,000 metre Steeplechase finals while rower Dattu Bhokanal topped the Final C to finish 13th overall in another dismal day which saw the women’s hockey team’s quarter-final dreams dashed by Argentina. I take pride in the fact that I always come through under pressure. I tried my best but could not succeed.
They say it is always darkest before dawn, which should mean the dawn of India’s 2016 Olympic campaign is on the horizon because Sunday in Rio de Janeiro was a pretty dark place to be for India’s Olympians. “I will try that in the future our performance at the next Olympics would be good”, Dipa added.
Rio de Janeiro, Aug 14 (IANS): The Indian duo of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna went down fighting in the semi-finals of the mixed doubles tennis event to the USA team of Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram at the Rio Olympics here.
The Indian duo then saved two set points in the game, but could not prevent the Americans from clinching another service break off Sania’s serve to take the second set and level the scores. But it was not to be as the fourth seeds squandered a one-set lead to lose 6-2, 2-6, 3-10 to the American pair of Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram. They briefly sparked in the second set, taking a 3-1 lead but were broken back immediately.
The next five games went by the serve but then Sania was broken in the 11th game.
But they couldn’t sustain the advantage as Lucie-Stepanek fought back to 3-3.
Despite the loss, Sania and Bopanna are determined to recover from the disappointment and go for the bronze medal and grab a piece of history for themselves. Bopanna served out the first set without fuss, hitting two aces. That break of serve spurred on United States of America, who raced to a 5-2 lead in no time and forced a match tie-breaker by breaking India again in the eighth game.
Sania said she needs to get over the grief and get ready for the Cincinnati event on the WTA Tour.
A visibly upset Bopanna said, “Right now, it’s really hard to focus. I don’t know if I will be playing tennis in four years”, Sania said with tears in her eyes.
And it took only few time, to Ram and Venus to start celebrating their win as they both jumped and were the world’s two best happiest men on the planet.
A nervous looking Watson struggled with her serve and was again down 0-40.
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Ulitina, 24, effected a shock win against the World No.5 and 2012 London Games bronze medallist Saina. To be fair to Saina, she looked slow and lacked energy, and reports suggested that she was carrying an injury. Saina also conceded a lot of points on misjudgement and was not able to retrieve once the shuttle moved behind her.
