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.
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. ...
more
03:00 PM, Aug 01, 2012
