Rowers clinch two silver but Saina makes shock exit

World number three Saina lost 8-21 21-8 19-18 to last edition's silver medallist and world number 12 Yip Pui Yin in a fiercely fought quarter-final match, which lasted 46 minutes. Poor form also continued to haunt the fancied shooters with Gagang Narang flopping yet again.

Apart from the silver-winning feat of the rowers, shooter Vijay Kumar bagged a bronze medal and Paramjeet Samota assured himself of at least a bronze after punching his way into the semifinals of super heavyweight on yet another mediocre day for the large Indian contingent.

With the addition of two silvers and a bronze, India took their medals tally to one gold, seven silver and eight bronze but the failure to win the coveted gold has resulted in a continuous slide in the position on the table in the last few days.

India, who found themselves in the 11th position on the medal rostrum yesterday, climbed down by one rung to the 12th spot. China maintained their supremacy atop the table with a whopping tally of 109-47-46 while South Korea (37-30-42) and Japan (21-45-38) also hung on to their second and third position respectively.

Tennis star Sania Mirza had a trouble-free day as she sailed into the pre-quarterfinals of the women's singles with a straight-set demolition of Hong Kong's Chan Wing Yau Venise while the racqueters got off to a good start with both men's and women's team progressing to the quarterfinals of the squash singles event.

On the gloomier side, the Indian challenge in table tennis ended with Achanta Sharath Kamal and Anthony Amalraj bowing out in the pre quarterfinals of the men's singles event. It was a similar story in men's singles badminton with Arvind Bhatt crashing out out in the pre-quarterfinals.

It was the men's rowing four team of Anil Kumar, Saji Thomas, Ranjit Singh and Jenil Krishnan which began the silver collection as they completed the distance of 2000m in 6:16.79, behind China (6:06.40). Uzbekistan won bronze with a timing of 6:22.70.

In the men's lightweight four event final, the Indian quartet of Lokesh Kumar, Manjeet Singh, Rajesh Kumar Yadav and Satish Joshi finished second with a timing of 6:13.32, behind Japan who clocked 6:10.14. Hong Kong won the bronze, clocking 6:14.84.

After three barren days at the Aoti shooting range, Vijay Kumar notched up his second and India's fifth medal in shooting by bagging a bronze in men's 25m center fire pistol but Commonwealth Games hero Narang missed out on a bronze by a whisker in 50m rifle 3 positions.