New Delhi: Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal and Soumyadeep Roy registered victories in contrasting styles to enter the singles semifinals, while two Indian pairs also added to the country's medal hopes in the Commonwealth Games' table tennis competition on Tuesday.
Defending champion Sharath eased past Singapore's Ma Liang 4-1, while Soumyadeep quelled stiff challenges before beating another Singaporean Cai Xiaoli with an identical scoreline at the Yamuna Sports Complex.
Meanwhile, the experienced Indian combo of Poulomi Ghatak and Mouma Das came out with some fine performances to overcome M Miao and J F Lay of Australia 3-2 in the women's doubles quarterfinal.
In the men's doubles, Sharath and former national champion Subhajit Saha gave the spectators more reasons to cheer when they beat Nigeria's Aruna Akinade and A seun 3-1 to enter the final-four stage.
Sharath, seeded second, adopted an attacking strategy from the beginning to leave Liang completely clueless and secure a 3-0 (11-7, 11-3, 11-7) lead in front of a capacity crowd.
Desperate to fightback, Liang bagged the fourth set 11-6, but the Indian, who was totally flawless in his long returns on Tuesday, clinched the issue by winning the fifth set 11-6.
"Although the scoreboard looks good, it was not that easy for me. I was very aggressive from the very beginning and did not give him much chance. I sprinted a lot during the match and the win is also good for my confidence," Sharath said after the match.
In semifinal on Wednesday, the lanky Indian will take on another Singaporean Yang Zi, who beat England's Paul Drinkhall 4-2.
In another quarterfinal, Soumyadeep started on a positive note, clinching the first set 11-7, but Xiaoli clawed his way back into the match by winning the second set 11-5.
However, Roy did not lose heart and bagged three sets back-to-back (12-10, 11-5, 13-11) in the best-of-seven contest and secured his final-four berth.
In the next stage, the Bengal paddler will take on world number 17, Gao Ning of Singapore, who spanked another Indian A Amalraj 4-1.
"Now it may be an all-Indian encounter for bronze or maybe for the gold medal," Sharath said.
Amalraj proved no match for Gao, considered to be the best paddler of his country, and except in the second set he could not really build up much resistance.
After losing the opening set 1-11, he bagged the second one 11-4. But yet again Gao started dominating the proceedings and the Indian lost the next three sets 5-11, 5-11, 7-11 to crash out of the singles competition.
It was a mixed day for the Indians in the doubles category.
The Bengal duo of Poulomi and Mouma put up a determined show to win 13-11, 4-11, 10-12, 11-5, 11-8 in a long-drawn encounter.
They now play Singapore's J Li and B Sun, who thrashed Malaysians pair of L W Beh and NG SK 3-0 in the round of eight.
But another Indian pair of Kumaresan Shamini and Madhurika Patkar lost 1-3 to T Feng and Y Wang of Singapore.
Sharath-Saha came from behind to win their men's doubles quarterfinal 7-11, 11-5, 12-10, 12-10 to set up a semifinal clash with Englishmen Andrew Baggaley and L Pitchford.
Baggaley-Pitchford beat Singaporeans Liang and Xiaoli 3-1.
India's Amalraj-Soumyadeep pair, however, could not cross the quarterfinal hurdle and found their nemesis in another Singapore combo of Gao and Yang.
The Indians were drubbed 0-3.
The hosts' challenge in the women's singles and mixed doubles sections have already ended.
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