BAHRAIN’S star paddlers Rashed Sanad and Mohammed Saleh both advanced to the men’s singles round of 32 yesterday in table tennis at the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.
Sanad defeated Pakistan’s Taha Bilal 4-0 (13-11, 11-4, 11-5, 11-7) to march through at Sky Hall Toyota, while Saleh defeated Ramhimlian Bawm from Bangladesh 4-1 (9-11, 11-2, 11-4, 11-8, 11-8) to move forward.
Sanad will next face off with Yun-Ju Lin from Chinese Taipei, who had a bye from the preliminary stage. Saleh, on the other hand, will be taking on Woojin Jang from South Korea. Jang too was also not in action in yesterday’s round of 64. The two contests are scheduled for today.
Sanad and Saleh are both also still in medal contention in the men’s doubles competition, where they have paired up with each other. They are set to face off with Chinese Taipei’s Hsien-cha Hsu and Jing-kai Hung in their round two clash today, while Bahrain’s other duo of Mohammed Alaali and Sayed Mahfoodh will be battling Zhe Yu Chew and Josh Chua of Singapore, also today.
Meanwhile, in esports yesterday at Aichi Sky Expo, Bahrain’s trio of Yusuf Bahram, Mohamed Debras, and Husam Alansari punched their tickets to the quarter-finals of the fighting games competition, featuring Street Fighter (SF) Six, Tekken Eight, and The King of Fighters (TKOF).
They secured their spot after splitting their two matches in Group C of the preliminary round. They first outplayed Kyrgyzstan 3-0 (SF 2-0, Tekken 2-1, TKOF 2-0), but then lost to Saudi Arabia 1-3 (SF 2-0, TKOF 1-2, Tekken 0-2, SF 1-2).
The Bahrainis finished second in their division behind top-ranked Saudi. They are now set to face off with Group B winners Japan in their last eight clash, slated for today.
In boxing yesterday at Nishio Gymnasium, Bahrain’s Ali Abdalla bowed out of further contention after losing by unanimous decision to Tajikistan’s Shamsher Saidov.
Four of the five judges awarded the round-of-16 bout to Saidov with scores of 29-27, while the other judge had it at 30-26, with Abdalla being given two warnings.
In shooting at Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Gallery, Bahrain’s Tammar Alwatt and Maryam Hassani missed out on the final of the skeet mixed team event.
They ranked ninth from 11 tandems in the qualification round with a 130 total. Only the top four marched through to the medal stage.
Meanwhile, elsewhere yesterday in Aichi-Nagoya, Bahrain’s Amani Al Obaidli ranked 20th overall amongst 35 swimmers in the women’s 50 metres freestyle heats, while Robert Bonsall finished eighth in final B of the men’s 800m freestyle with a time of eight minutes 13.33 seconds.
In athletics, Bahrainis Raihanah Garoubah and Edidiong Odiong both qualified for the semi-finals of the women’s 100m. Garoubah clocked a personal best of 11.44 seconds to register the third-quickest mark of the first-round heats, which featured 28 runners in four races. Odiong had the fifth-best time of 11.48s to also make it through. Their semis races are scheduled for today.
Their compatriots Ali Haji and Abdulraof Rashid did the same in the men’s 100m. Haji ranked 14th from 38 competitors in their heats, which consisted of six races. He clocked a time of 10.37s. Rashid was 17th in the round with a time of 10.39s.
Their semis events are also scheduled for today.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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