Ankita Raina on Wednesday confirmed just the third singles medal in women's tennis for India at the Asian Games as she reached the semifinals after being 1-4 down at one stage.
India's top-ranked women's singles player, Ankita breezed past Eudice Chong 6-4 6-1 of Hong Kong in their quarterfinal match.
She won the first set in 54 minutes and took only 27 minutes to claim the second set.
Raina came back from behind to take the first set 6-4 against Chong of Hong Kong. Raina was trailing 0-3 and 1-4 at the beginning of the match before staging a comeback.
Raina thus assured herself of at least a bronze medal.
On the other hand, star Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar pulled out of the artistic team finals after a career-threatening knee injury flared up again.
"...there was risk of a dangerous injury, so she could not be her best. We will give her rest from the team event but she will definitely do well in (balancing) beam finals," said Dipa's coach Bisweswar Nandi.
Asked if competing in beam finals will affect the knee adversely, Nandi said, "No, the landing is not hard on balancing beam."
A sobbing Dipa blamed it on a jerk felt during the 'podium practice' and insisted she will strive to make up for the lost opportunity by shining in the balancing beam finals.
Dipa, who attained global fame attempting the death-defying 'Produnova' vault at a stage no less than Olympics for a fourth-place finish in 2016, could not even qualify for her pet event at Asian Games. "I felt jerk during podium training. I could not do my best. I had trained hard for this," Dipa said.
Additionally, Indian swimmers Sandeep Sejwal, Sajan Prakash and Avinash Mani topped their respective heats but still failed to qualify for the finals. Sejwal finished first in his heat with a timing of 62.07 but could not make the final of the men's 100m breaststroke despite his impressive outing at the GBK Aquatic Center.
Before that, Sajan Prakash won his heat with a timing of 54.04 in men's 100m butterfly, while Avinash Mani beat Saudi Arabia's Bu Arish in their two-man unseeded heat. Mani had a timing of 56.98.