Doha: Celebrated tennis ace Leander Paes combined with Mahesh Bhupathi and later with Sania Mirza to win the men's doubles and mixed doubles gold medals and help India regain the sixth place in the medals tally of the 15th Asian Games on Wednesday.
First, 33-year-old Paes and Bhupathi rallied from the brink, saving eight match points against Thai brothers Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana on way to the top of the podium. Half-an-hour later, the never-say-die Paes was back on court with Sania to beat Satoshi Iwabuchi and Akiko Morigami of Japan to win the mixed doubles gold.
Paes and Bhupathi rallied superbly to beat the Ratiwatana 5-7, 7-6 (9-7), 6-3 in an edge-of-the-seat thriller that lasted two hours and 44 minutes, including a rain interruption.
Soon after that final, Paes and Sania at Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex to defeat Satoshi and Akiko 7-5, 5-7, 6-2 in a pulsating mixed doubles final - again backed by huge support from the Indians in the stands.
Besides the tennis gold medals, India also won two silver and four bronze to take its tally to 51 medals, including nine gold, 18 silver and 24 bronze.
India could have won another tennis gold in the women's singles, but fourth-seed Sania, who had qualified for four tennis finals at the 45-nation games, let slip a good opportunity in the final against second seed Chinese Jie Zheng.
After losing the first set 4-6, the Indian came back strongly to wrest the second one 6-1. But Jie won the decider 6-1 to walk away with the gold medal.
India's only other silver of the day came in Beneteau 7.5 Open event of sailing. The medal-winning team comprised Sanjeev Chauhan, Girdhari Yadav, Mahesh Ramchandran and Nitin Mongia.
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