Somdev enters history books with first singles gold at Asiad

Somdev Devvarman today created history by becoming the first Indian to win a gold medal in the men's singles tennis event of the Asian Games after outplaying top seed and world number 44 Denis Istomin 6-1 6-2 in the lop-sided summit clash here.

With this win, Somdev won his second gold from the tennis competition, and seventh for India, having already captured yellow metal in the men's doubles with Sanam Singh. No Indian player had played in the gold-medal match in the men's singles before Somdev, world number 106, and the country had three bronze medals to show so far at the Games.

Leander Paes (Hiroshima in 1994), Mahesh Bhupathi (Bangkok in 1998) and Prahlad Srinath (Bangkok in 1998) had won those three bronze medal in men's singles. In total, Somdev won three medals at this edition of the Games as he had earlier won a bronze in team event as well.

India rounded off its tennis campaign with five medals, two more than what the country had got at the Doha Asian Games in 2006. At Doha, Leander Paes had won two gold medals -- in men's doubles with Mahesh Bhupathi and in mixed doubles with Sania Mirza.

Sania had won a sliver in the women's singles. The final match between Somdev and Istomin never rose to expected heights as the Uzbek was erratic and failed to curb his unforced errors, which helped Somdev's cause.

The Indian broke the Uzbek twice in the opening set to take a comfortable 5-0 and served it out in the seventh game, having dropped his own in the sixth. The second set was no different as Somdev again rode on double break after initial resistance from Istomin to seal the gold medal.


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Asian Games begins with spirited opening ceremony

GUANGZHOU, China (Kyodo) The largest-ever Asian Games got under way on Friday night with the opening ceremony.

Directed by Chen Weiya, who was the assistant director of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the ceremony was held outside the main stadium for the first time in Asian Games history — in the Pearl River on the Haixinsha Island.

A record number of about 10,000 athletes from 45 countries and regions will participate in 476 gold medal events in 42 sports, compared to 26 sports at the London Olympics in 2012.

Cricket, dance sport, roller sports and chess, including weiqi and xiangqi, are newly added sports at the Asian Games, which will also feature those unique to the continent such as dragon boat, kabaddi and sepaktakraw.

The ceremony marks the climatic end of the torch relay that traveled 25 Chinese cities starting Beijing a month ago.

Guangzhou is the second Chinese city to host an Asian Games following Beijing in 1990.

China also hosted the 2010 Shanghai World Expo that ended on Oct. 31.

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