Tokyo Olympics : Day-9: Kamalpreet enters final, Sindhu to play for bronze

Rio Olympics silver medallist PV Sindhu lost the women's singles semi-final match 18-21, 12-21 in 40 minutes to Chinese Taipei's Tai Tzu-Ying and failed to make it to the final like the last time. In the first game the Hyderabadi girl had a slender 11-8 lead but the world number one Tai Tzu-Ying made a strong comeback from there and levelled the score at 18-18 and later on she raced away with the first game. In the second game the reigning world champion was no match to her opponent and Tai Tzu-Ying entered her first ever Olympic final appearance. PV Sindhu will now play for the bronze medal against China's He Bingjiao who lost to her Chinese counterpart Chen Yufei in a hard fought 3 game encounter. Boxer Pooja Rani crashed to a heavy defeat in the quarter-final of women's middle 75kg weight category losing to Li Qian at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics. The Indian pugilist lost 0-5 to Chinese boxer who dominated the match right from the opening round. India's Discus thrower Kamalpreet Kaur produced one of the best performances by an Indian in the Olympics, though in a qualifying round, as she made it to the finals of the ongoing Games. The 25-year-old competing in qualification B, sent the discus to a distance of 64 metres in her third and final attempt to be one of the only two automatic qualifiers for the final round, the other being American Valarie Allman who threw 66.42 metres. India's Seema Punia finished in 6th in Women's Discus Throw Qualification - Group A with a below par best throw of 60.57 metres and failed to qualify for the final. The Indian women's hockey team beat lower-ranked South Africa 4-3 in the final Pool A match to record its second consecutive win. Vandana Katariya scored a hat-trick while young Neha Goyal was the other goal-getter for India. India have finished the group stages with six points from five games. The world number 1 Indian pugilist Amit Panghal is knocked out by Colombian Yuberjen Martinez in the round of 16, 4-1. The Asian Games gold medallist won the opening round but looked completely out of sorts in the next two rounds and faced an early round exit. Satish Yadav is the only Indian male boxer left in the Olympics while Amit Panghal joins the list of Vikas Krishan, Ashish Chaudhary and Manish Kaushik to be ousted in the first round. Tejaswini Sawant & Anjum Moudgil failed to make it to the finals of the 50M Rifle 3 Position finishing 33rd and 14th respectively. Indian shooters' disappointing campaign in the Tokyo Olympics continues. Indian archer Atanu Das lost to Japan's Takaharu Furukawa 4-6 to crash out in 1/8 eliminations. Atanu Das shot 26 as the Japanese got a total of 28 to win the fifth set and book his spot in the quarters. With this performance India's Olympic campaign in archery comes to an end. India's Murli Sreeshankar finished 13th in his heat and 25th overall in the Men's Long Jump at the Tokyo Olympics. He had been drawn in Group A and ended up recording a best distance of 7.69 on his very first attempt. The 22-year-old Keralite, featuring in his debut Olympics, was seeded alongside 15 other athletes in Group B of the Men's Long Jump Heat on the second day of Athletics at the Tokyo Olympics. Murli Sreeshankar finished his quota of three jumps with a 7.43 (-0.1) on his final attempt. Unable to better his very first jump, Sreeshankar was ranked in his own group and crashed out of the event. KC Ganapathy and Varun Thakkar have completed their races finishing in 17th position. The Olympic debutants have had a noteworthy show in Tokyo. The top 10 sailing teams have qualified for the medal race. Therefore India is out of the race for a medal in men's skiff 49er. Nethra Kumanan finished 35th of the 44 competitors in the Laser Radial class outside the top 10 finish required to take part in the medals race. Golfer Anirban Lahiri ends the day in the 28th position, dropping four positions from the second day. He stays at -6 to par. Fellow Indian Udayan Mane continues to be in the bottom half of the table in the 55th position. He is at +2 to par. The prospects of a strong finish in the table looks unlikely, but the Indian duo would be eager to put in a strong finish on the final day of the competitions.