Saina Nehwal gets past Lydia Cheah

Saina Nehwal warmed up for the tougher challenges ahead with a 21-15, 21-17 victory against victory against Lydia Cheah of Malaysia in the women's singles pre-quarterfinals in badminton at the Tianhe Gymnasium, in the Asian Games here on Wednesday.

However, another Indian, Aditi Mutatkar could not capitalise on a strong start and missed the chance of making the quarterfinals, as she lost 20-22, 21-8, 21-12 to the fourth-seeded Eriko Hirose of Japan. She had beaten a Sri Lankan in the first round.

“In the first set, I made silly mistakes. In the second and third, I corrected myself and won the match,” said the Japanese.

There was another disappointment for the Indian camp as P. Kashyap was quite erratic and lacked the intensity of concentration as he went down 14-21, 20-22 to the fifth-seeded Tien Minh Nguyen of Vietnam in the men's first round.

Lack of temperament

Kashyap had the game, but not the temperament to outwit a cool opponent. He showed his class with impressive smashes in warding off two match-points, but a chorded drop sat up and helped his opponent in bringing the curtains down.

“I got my rhythm a little too late. The second set was anyone's game. I am very disappointed and sad, because I thought that technically I was good. I was finding it difficult to adjust to the conditions. I was not getting the feel of the shuttle,” Kashyap said.

“I think he was attacking too much. It would have been good if Kashyap had opened up the game, which he did in the second set,” said coach P. Gopichand.

In men's doubles, Jaesung Chung and Yongdae Lee of Korea beat Akshay Dewalkar and Arun Sivarajan 21-14, 21-14 in the first round. Arun Sivarajan also lost the mixed doubles earlier with Aparna Balan, 22-20, 7-21, 12-21 against Shintaro Ikeda and Reiko Shiota of Japan in the round of 32.

Rupesh, Sanave bow out

Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas also bowed out 15-21, 19-21 in the pre-quarterfinals to the top-seeded Kien Keat Koo and Boon Heong Tan of Malaysia.

In table tennis, Sharath Kamal beat Rohan Nanamendra of Sri Lanka 11-9, 11-7, 11-1, 11-8 in the pre-quarterfinals. Amalraj Arputharaj also joined him in the next round with a 11-4, 7-11, 11-8, 13-11, 8-11, 11-8 victory over Muhd Shakirin Ibrahim of Malaysia.

In weightlifting, Monika Devi finished seventh with a total of 212 kg in the women's 69 kg section. She had 95 kg in snatch and 117 in clean and jerk.

The gold was bagged by Liu Chunhong of China with a total lift of 242 kg, the included 110 in snatch. In the men's 85 kg section, Chandrakant Mali was 10th with a lift of 309, following 138 in snatch and 171 in clean and jerk. Lu Yong of China won with a total lift of 376 kg, with 173 in snatch.