Asian Games: Indian male cagers, men's vollyball team off to winning start
Incheon: Indian male cagers started their Asian Games campaign on a resounding note, thrashing a lowly Palestine 89-49 in their opening Group B encounter at the Hwaseong Sports Complex Gymnasium, here today.
India dominated Palestine in all the four quarters with Amjyot Singh turning out to be the highest scorer for the formers with 25 points.
The Indians raced to a 20-6 lead in the first quarter and then extended it to 40-23 at the second break.
Palestine tried to make a comeback of a sort in the third quarter but the Indians managed to hold on to their lead to go into the penultimate break leading 68-41.
The last quarter completely belonged to India as they toyed with Palestine defence to pocket the tie in their favour.
India will take on Saudi Arabia in their next group match on Saturday.
Indian men struggle past Hong Kong, women thrashed by South Korea:
India had mixed results from the volleyball courts on Saturday as the men's team were given a tough time by an unfancied Hong Kong while the women's team were soundly thrashed by hosts South Korea in the opening group league matches at the 18th Asian Games in Incheon.
In a men's group C encounter, India won by 23-25 25-18 25-16 25-21 against a spirited Hong Kong side which is atleast 90 places below them.
The Indian girls were no match for their South Korean counterparts as the home team recorded a crushing 25-5 25-12 25-13 win in just 56 minutes.
It wasn't one of the most convincing performance from the Indian men, as there were too many errors at the net and also the performance of the libero Sivasubramanium Kanagaraj left a lot to be desired.
However it was the tallest man in the court -- GR Vaishnav, standing at 6 feet 9 inches, whose timely interceptions and smashes was one of the reasons that 'Men In Yellow' overcame their first hurdle.
Having conceded the first set at 23, the Indians did well to open an 10 point lead in the second set before winning it at 18.
The third set also went India's way as they got the momentum going in their favour.
The young Hong Kong spikers did make a vailiant attempt to level proceedings in the fourth set as they lead 16-14 till the final time-out.
However, it was Punjab lad Gurinder, who was in his element as his killer smashes opened up lead at 20 and Indians finished it off at 25-21.
Indian rower finishes second in heats:
Indian rower Dushiant Dushyant finished second in the Lightweight Men's Single Sculls heats on the first day of competition in the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.
Dushyant completed the 2000m distance in 7:23.94 behind Hakbeom Lee of South Korea (7:19.45) in heat number two.
The Indian was leading till the 1500m distance mark but lost steam in the last 500m with the South Korean overtaking him in the final stretch.
