Beijing: After the euphoria over the golden feat by marksman Abhinav Bindra, India on Tuesday met with mixed fortunes at the Beijing Olympics with medal favourite tennis stars Leander Paes-Mahesh Bhupathi and boxers emerging victorious while shooters and archers faltered.
The heartbreak for the Indian camp on Day IV of the Olympics was the failure of Athens Olympics silver medallist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and Commonwealth Games hero Samresh Jung to carry on the momentum set by Bindra.
The duo lost in the qualifying round of their respective events -- double trap and 50 meter pistol.
A rusty Rathore struggled to read targets and shot 131, which was just not enough to reach the business end of the event to stay in medal hunt.
Top six shooters made it to the final event from the 19-man field, which had Rathore placed 15th overall with 131 points.
Nothing went right for the Armyman, from whom much was expected after his performance in the previous edition of the Games, right from the beginning when he shot 43 in the first round before managing 45 in the second.
An exceptional third round could have seen him through and Rathore began well too as he shot down the first eight pair of birds. But he ran into a wretched stretch midway through the round, throwing his bid in complete disarray.
A shattered Rathore fought hard to hold back tears and hinted at calling it a day.
Rathore said he needed to give it a serious thought whether he would be back competing in shooting ranges again.
"I did not read the targets too well and paid the price. I worked hard for the last four years but things just did not go my way today," he said.
Jung, the much-feted shooter after his 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games exploits, was also not in his elements and his total of 540 was not enough to find him a place among the top six who made it to the finals.
Jung's campaign got off to an ordinary start with the Indian shooting an average 88. He did improve in the next two, firing 92 and 91 but things remained quite bleak for him by that time and his problem was only compounded in the fourth
series when he shot 86.
Although he had two more series to go, the writing was clear on the wall by that time and Jung signed off with series of 90 and 93 to bow out of the event.
Jung had earlier missed the cut for the finals of the 10m air pistol competition.
The disappointment continued in archery as well with Dola Banerjee, Bombayla Devi and Pranitha Vardhineni losing in separate contests ending India's hopes in the women's individual events.
While Dola lost to Canadian Marie-Pier Beaudet, Bombayla went down to Poland's Iwona Marcinkiewicz and Pranitha was beaten 99-106 to Kwon Un Sil of South Korea in a pre-quarterfinal match at the Olympics.
By contrast, India tasted victory in the tennis court where Paes and Bhupathi put behind their frosty relation and recreated the old magic to cruise into the second round of the men's doubles event, and in the boxing ring where Akhil Kumar (bantamweight) and Jitender Kumar (flyweight) breezed into the second round.
The Paes-Bhupathi duo was their usual self as they tamed the French scratch pair of Gael Monfils and Gilles Simon 6-3, 6-3 in less than an hour.
The seventh seeded Indians now meet the Brazilian pair of Marcelo Melo and Sa Andre, who upstaged the Czech pair of Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek 5-7, 6-2, 8-6 in a gruelling first round match at the Olympic Green Tennis Centre.
Despite not playing together enough in recent past, there was no real rust in their play as Paes and Bhupathi played clinical tennis against their French rivals to chalk out a rather facile opening round victory.
In boxing, Haryana-lad Jitender gave no signs that he was making his Olympic debut and went on offensive against his Turkish rival Ulas Furkan Memis in a one-sided bout.
The 12-3 victory in the 51 kg category took the Indian into the pre-quarterfinals. The Asian Championship bronze medallist was aggressive from the word go and launched a flurry of straight punches on Memis, who was left scurrying for cover.
Jitender now meets Tulashboy Doniyorov of Uzbekistan while Akhil takes on 2007 world champion Sergey Vodopyanov in the pre-quarters.
Akhil outpunched Ali Hallab of France 12-5 in another lop-sided bout in the 54 kg category.
"My next round match is going to be crucial and fighting against a world champion is never going to be easy. I'll put my best foot forward," Akhil said.
Rowing pair of Devender Kumar Khandwal and Manjeet Singh finished a disappointing fifth in the Lightweight Men's Double Sculls Repechage 2.
In swimming Virdhawal Khade finished 48th out of 57 participants clocking 1:51.86 sec in the men's 200 freestyle while in the 100m breaststroke Sandeep Sejwal came 38th in 1:02.19 seconds.
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