Asian Games: India's table tennis shines; men's volleyball team advance to classification stage on Day 4

Hangzhou [China], September 22 : The Indian men's and women's table tennis teams won their respective games, while the men's volleyball team continued its winning momentum at the Hangzhou Asian Games on Friday. 
Starting their campaign, the men's table tennis team beat Yemen with a dominating performance by winning the match 3-0. 
Sathiyan won the first match of the tie to register a dominating 11-3,11-2,11-6 triumph over Ali Omar Ahmed of Yemen in just 13 minutes. The victory gave India a 1-0 lead.
In the second match of the tie, Sharath produced a spectacular performance 11-3, 11-4, 11-6 to help India take a 2-0 lead over Yemen. The Indian ace took just 17 minutes to quash the challenge from Yemen’s Ebrahim Abdulhakim Mohamm Gubran.
Harmeet Desai sealed the deal for India as he gave his team a comfortable 3-0 victory over Yemen. Although Harmeet was offered the first two games 11-1, 11-1, on a platter, Magd Ahmed Ali Aldhubhani made the Indian’s life a bit difficult in the potential decider.
However, the decider, six minutes long, eventually went 11-7 in favour of Harmeet.
Women's table tennis also started their Asian Games stint with a hard-fought win over Singapore in their Group F match. India beat Singapore by 3-2.
In the first match of the tie, Ayhika Mukherjee took on Jian Zeng in women's singles competition. Jian won the game by 3-1 (7-11, 11-2, 11-7, 12-10) to give Singapore a 1-0 lead.
In the second match of the tie, Manika Batra took on Jingyi Zhou in another women's singles match. Batra reversed the fortunes of Singapore, levelling the scoreline 1-1 with a 3-1 win over the Singaporean (11-9, 9-11, 11-7, 11-3).
Sreeja Akula took on Ru Xin Wong in the third match of the tie. This match was a hard-fought won but Sreeja won it by 3-2 (12-14, 11-9, 8-11, 11-9, 11-7). With this, the scoreline turned in India's favour at 2-1.
However, Singapore refused to go down without a fight. Jian defeated Manika by 3-2 in a hard-fought match (11-3, 3-11, 12-10, 10-12, 12-10) to level the scoreline at 2-2.
In the final match of the tie, Ayhika beat Zhou by 3-1 (11-7, 11-8, 9-11, 11-5) to seal a 3-2 win for India.
Playing their second match of the day, India's men's table tennis team defeated Singapore 3-1 to win their second match of the day on Friday.
Sathiyan Gnanasekaran won the thriller against Izaac Yong in men’s singles 5-11, 12-10, 11-6, 11-9 in the opening tie.
In the second match, Harmeet did not start well as he was trailed by four points at one juncture but made a comeback to win the first game 12-10 in 11 minutes. Harmeet provided 2-0 to the team by winning the second match by 12-10, 11-8, 6-11, 6-11, 11-5.
Achanta Sharath Kamal had hard luck as he lost his game against Zhe Yu Clarence Chew.
Sharath Kamal struggled against Zhu Yu Clarance Chew, losing the 11-13, 11-9, 12-10, 5-11 giving Chew a 2-0 lead.
India clinched the match against Singapore after Sathiyan won the fourth tie 11-7, 12-10, 11-9, 11-6 against Pang.
The Indian men's volleyball team on Friday defeated Chinese Taipei in straight sets in the Asian Games to continue its winning momentum.
With this win Indian team has advanced to the classification stage. They will now face two-time champions Japan on Sunday. 
In the rowing event, Balraj Panwar representing the country in men's singles sculls, reached the final A in his category on Friday.
Balraj finished third in the semifinal A/B2 of his category with a timing of 7:22:22.
India also had significant progress in sailing, in the men's dinghy event, Vishnu Saravanan finished day two at the first position among 13 participants. He finished race one with a race point, fifth in race two with five race points and first in race three with one race point. In race four, he finished seventh with seven race points, earning a total of 14 points.