Mirabai Chanu opened India's medal count at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on July 24, 2021 by winning silver in the women's 49kg weightlifting. While Saurabh Chaudhary had a disappointing outing in the 10m air pistol final, there were encouraging results elsewhere, notably from Sumit Nagal in tennis and the pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty in badminton men's doubles.
Here are the highlights from Saturday. (And here's Sunday's preview).
RESULTS
Weightlifting
Mirabai Chanu opened India's medal count by winning silver in the 49kg women's weightlifting.
Related:
- Mirabai's redemption arc, five years in the making
- 'I was nervous as I knew the country was watching'
Shooting (Men's 10m Air Pistol)
Saurabh Chaudhary lived up to his pre-tournament favourite billing in the 10m air pistol event by topping the qualification round with a score of 586. Abhishek Verma missed out on the final, finishing 17th with a score of 575. Chaudhary missed out on a medal though, finishing 7th in the final.
Shooting (Women's 10m Air Rifle)
World No. 1 Elavenil Valarivan and world record holder Apurvi Chandela missed out on making the final after finishing 16th and 36th, respectively, in qualification.
Badminton
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty played a sensational match on Olympic debut, defeating the world no. 3 ranked pair of Lee Yang and Wang Chi-Lin 21-16, 16-21, 27-25 in a pulsating contest.
B. Sai Praneeth lost 17-21, 15-21 to Misha Zilberman (Israel).
Tennis
Sumit Nagal became only the third Indian to win a men's singles match at the Olympics Games and the first in 25 years, defeating Asian Games champion Denis Istomin 6-4 6-7(6) 6-4 in two hours and 34 minutes. He faces world no.2 two Daniil Medvedev next.
Related
'Emotional' Nagal lands 'super tough' win in 'terrible weather'
Table tennis
Manika Batra entered the second round of the women's singles with a 11-7, 11-6, 12-10, 11-9 win over Great Britain's Ho Tin-Tin. Sutirtha Mukherjee also advanced to the second round after fighting back to win the last three games to defeat Sweden's Linda Bergstroem 5-11, 11-9, 11-13, 9-11, 11-3, 11-9, 11-5.
Batra, however, lost 8-11, 6-11, 5-11, 4-11 in the mixed doubles first round with her partner A Sharath Kamal to Chinese Taipei's Lin Yun Ju and Cheng I Ching.
Archery (Mixed Team)
Deepika Kumari-Pravin Jadhav lost 2-6 to South Korea's An San and Kim Je Deok in the quarterfinals. Earlier, the pair had recorded an impressive win over Chinese Taipei's Lin Chia-En and Tang Chih-Chun, coming back from 0-2 down to win the match 5-3.
Hockey (Men)
India beat New Zealand 3-2 in Pool A, thanks to some Sreejesh heroics.
Men's lightweight double sculls
Arjun Lal and Arvind Singh qualified for the repechage round after their fifth-place finish in the six-team field meant they missed out on the semifinals.
Judo
Shushila Devi Likmabam lost 10-0 by Ippon to Hungary's Eva Csernoviczki.
Boxing
Vikas Krishan suffered a 5-0 loss to Sewonrets Okazawa (Japan) in the round of 32.
India at Tokyo: Key dates | Athletes | Top storylines | News & features | Medal prospects
Hockey (Women)
India lost 5-1 to the Netherlands after getting outplayed in the third and fourth quarter against the world champions.
Here's how the action unfolded. (Please wait a little while for the blog to load. Click here if it does not load.)