Olympics, Day 5: Kashyap, Saina storm into QF

London: Day five at the 2012 London Olympics continued to be a mixed bag for India, where while archer Deepika Kumari disappointed, shuttlers Parupalli Kashyap and Saina Nehwal stormed into the quarter-finals of the badminton singles event, after a controversy that marred the badminton event at the London Olympics 2012.

Kashyap beat Niluka Karunaratne 21-14, 15-21, 21-9, dominating the Sri Lankan with some brilliant strokeplay. The previous best performance by an Indian was by Dipankar Bhattacharjee, who entered the third round at the 1992 Barcelona Games. Kashyap will either play world No. 1 Chong Wei Lee of Malaysia or No. 9 Simon Santoso from Indonesia in the quarter-finals.

In one of the last events of the day for India, Saina reached the women's singles quarter-finals by beating her Dutch opponent 21-14, 21-16 in the Round of 16. Saina will play her quarter-final against either Tine Baun of Denmark or Sato Sayaka of Japan.

However, archer Deepika Kumari bowed out and the men\'s hockey team suffered its second straight defeat.

At Lord's, Deepika, who had finished ninth in the qualifying, was 2-2 with Oliver after two sets but slipped to 4-3 after the third before shooting 8, 9 and 9 in the fourth. Oliver shot 8, 10 and 10 to beat Deepika.

India's archery contingent was seen as genuine medal contenders going into the Games, but they all failed to match expectations.

The Indian pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa, who narrowly missed a quarter final berth by finishing third in their group, lodged a formal complaint, though the eight disqualified players were not in the same group along with the Indian duo - which prevented the Indian duo from getting another chance after they bowed out of the event on Tuesday.

"We are not sure what the scenario is right now. We are waiting for the decision and we hope to make it to the quarters. As far as I know, the officials are discussing the issue and we will get to know in some time."

Later on, the India's re-appeal against the result of a group B match between Japan and Chinese Taipei in the doubles badminton competition, which they alleged was not played in the right spirit and resulted in the elimination of the Indian pair, was turned down. Russia, Canada, Australia and South Africa were given the quarter-final spots.

On the hockey turf, New Zealand chalked up a 3-1 win over India who thus slid to their second defeat in as many matches.

After a sensational start when Sandeep Singh converted a second minute penalty corner, India faded away as the Kiwis came storming back with goals by Andrew Hayward (13th), Phillip Burrows (24th) and Nicolas Wilson (29th), and then nursed the lead to the end.

In shooting, Indian girls Rahi Sarnobat and Annu Raj Singh finished at lowly 19th and 30th respectively to bow out at the qualification stage.

Meanwhile, Indian men's doubles pair of Leander Paes and Vishnu Vardhan's campaign in the 2012 London Games came to an end after they lost to the second seeded French pair of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Michael Llodra in an evenly fought second round match.

Paes and Vardhan put on a valiant performance before going down 6-7 (3-7), 6-4 and 3-6 in a match that lasted 127 minutes. Vishnu, who had to partner Paes after Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna refused to pair with the 1996 Olympic bronze medallist, showed maturity and played with his heart out.

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