By Tapan Mohanta
Rio de Janeiro:K Srikanth and P V Sindhu kept the medal hopes alive in badminton with facile wins but boxers drew a blank after Vikas Krishan was ousted in the quarterfinals on a mixed day for Indian athletes in the Rio Games here.

The 21-19 21-19 win for Srikanth, ranked 11th in the world, lifted the sagging spirits of India on the 10th day of competitions as he became the second shuttler after P Kashyap in the London Games four years ago to reach the last eight in men’s singles.

Later, two-time World Championship bronze-medallist P V Sindhu advanced to the quarterfinals of the women’s singles competition after notching up a dominating straight-game win over Chinese Taipei’s Tai Tzu Ying at the Olympic Games here.

The 21-year-old from Hyderabad outclassed eighth seed Tai 21-13 21-15 in a 40-minute pre-quarterfinals clash here. She will next take on China’s Wang Yihan, the London Olympics silver-medallist.

However, India’s slim hopes of a medal in the women’s 3000m steeplechse disappeared when Lalita Babar, the first track athlete to qualify for an Olympic final in 32 years, could finish only 10th in 9 minutes, 22.74 seconds.

She had set a new national mark of 9:19.76s when she qualified for the final two days ago, but could not improve on it in a race won with a searing run to the gold by Bahrain’s diminutive Kenya-born Asian Games champion Ruth Jebet in 8:59.75s.

Despite her 10th place finish, Babar’s effort was still the best performance by an Indian in a track event after after PT Usha’s fourth-place finish in the 400m hurdles in 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

The 27-year-old from the drought-prone Satara district in Maharashtra had become the second Indian woman after Usha in 1984 Los Angeles to qualify for a final at a track event at quadrennial extravaganza.

2015 World Championships gold winner Hyvin Kiyeng Jepkomoi of Kenya took the silver in 9:07.12s while American Emma Coburn won the bronze in 9:07.63s.

Two other athletes – Srabani Nanda, in women’s 200m, and triple jumper Renjith Maheshwary – made tame exits in the first round while wrestler Ravinder Khatri lost his opening round fight against Hungary’s Viktor Lorincz in the greco roman 85kg class.

There was disappointment in the boxing arena as well with former Asian Games gold-medallist Vikas (75kg) took a pounding from second seed Bektemir Melikuziev in the quarterfinals to bow out of the Games, ending India’s boxing challenge without a medal for the first time in eight years.

With Shiva Thapa (56kg) and Manoj Kumar (64kg) already out of contention, Vikas’ loss today drew the curtains on the Indian boxing challenge in the Games.

In fact, it is the second successive time that the male boxers failed to secure a medal given that the 2012 bronze had come through M C Mary Kom (51kg).

Vijender Singh (75kg) thus remains the first and only Indian male boxer to have secured an Olympic medal (a bronze in 2008 Beijing Games).

In the quarterfinal contest last night, the seventh-seeded Vikas was simply no match for the world No.3, a World Championships silver-medallist and the reigning Asian champion, a title he won after beating Vikas in the final last year.

Sindhu reaches quarterfinals of Rio Olympics

Rio de Janeiro: Two-time World Championship bronze-medallist P V Sindhu advanced to the quarterfinals of the women’s singles competition after notching up a dominating straight-game win over Chinese Taipei’s Tai Tzu Ying at the Olympic Games here.

The 21-year-old from Hyderabad outclassed eighth seed Tai 21-13 21-15 in a 40-minute pre-quarterfinals clash here. She will next take on China’s Wang Yihan, the London Olympics silver-medallist.

Sindhu, who has a 2-4 record against Tai Tzu, having beaten her last at the Denmark Open last year, opened up a 3-1 lead early on and even though Tai came back to draw level at 5-5, the Indian managed to lead 11-6 at the break.

Tai depended on her deceptive game to reduce the margin to 10-12 but she was equally erratic with her placements sometimes, while Sindhu showed better presence of mind.

Sindhu won a video referral to reach the game point at 20-13 and then pocketed it comfortably with Tai hitting wide.

After the change of ends, Sindhu once again moved to a 3-1 lead but she erred twice on her backhand returns to give away two points.

Tai tried to take away the pace from the rallies and came up with a few down the line smashes to make it 6-6 after Sindhu dropped her serve.

However, Tai’s inability to rein in her unforced errors saw Sindhu lead 11-6 at the interval.

Tai tried to put pressure on Sindhu but failed to give the finishing touch as Sindhu sailed away to a 14-7 lead.

With Sindhu in full flow, Tai seemed clueless and was not able to play her own game, staying away from the net.

The Chinese Taipei girl found it difficult to control the shuttle and hit long twice to allow Sindhu a lead of 17-11. A couple of drop shots deflected by the net chord took Sindhu to 19-12 before Tai sent one to the net to gift eight match points to Sindhu.

Tai saved three match points before another long shot saw Sindhu seal the issue in her favour.

Earlier, K Srikanth also reached the quarterfinals of the men’s singles after beating World No. 5 Jan Jorgensen of Denmark in straight games.

PTI