Ghosal takes historic silver, Bindra bags two bronze

Star Indian shooter Abhinav Bindra clinched an individual bronze medal in his last Asian Games while squash player Saurav Ghosal had to be content with a historic silver as India added three more medals to boost their tally to nine on the fourth day of competitions here today.
While Bindra was the star performer as he picked up the individual as well as team bronze in the men's 10m air rifle event, Ghosal narrowly missed out on a coveted yellow metal on what turned out to be a mixed day for the Indian contingent.
With the addition of three more medals, India maintained their 13th position on the medals table with a tally of one gold, one silver and seven bronze. Powerhouse China continued to top the table with 68 (32-18-18), followed by hosts South Korea 49 (15-17-17) and Japan 48 (14-16-18).

Bindra, who had announced that he will quit competitive shooting after the multi-sporting event, broke his Asian Games jinx by clinching his first individual medal after bagging a medal of the same hue in team event along with Sanjeev Rajput and Ravi Kumar at the Gyeonggido Shooting Range.
The Glasgow Commonwealth Games gold medallist had a fine sequence of scores barring 9.9 and 9.6 on his 6th and 12th shots, and had to be content with the bronze medal after shooting 10.6 and 10.7 in his last two shots.
It was heartbreak for Ghosal, Asian number one and tournament top seed, as he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory after squandering a commanding 2-0 lead against Abdullah Al Muzayen in the men's singles squash final.

The Indian world no 16 led his 5-8 seeded Kuwaiti rival 12-10, 11-2 when Abdullah came up a stunning turnaround to turn the tables on Ghosal for the gold.

Abdullah, ranked 46th in the world, produced top drawer stuff when he was down and out for the count to manage a 10-12, 2-11, 14-12, 11-8, 11-9 win that stunned the Indian camp, and the player especially, into deep despair, notwithstanding that it was country's first ever silver from the squash courts in Games history.
Apart from Bindra and his team's bronze-winning effort, there was disappointment for the other Indian shooters who were in action today.

In trap women's team finals, India's Shreyasi Singh (66 pts) Seema Tomar (63) and Shagun Chowdhary (59) finished at eighth place after scoring a total of 188.