India's Naorem Roshibina Devi, Santosh Kumar, Surya Bhanu Pratap Singh and Narender Grewal assured themselves of a medal each after advancing to the semi-finals of their respective categories in the wushu competition at the 18th Asian Games here on Tuesday.
Naorem defeated Mubashra of Pakistan 2-0 in the quarter-finals of the women's sanda 60 kilogram category. This was the first medal for India in wushu at this year's Asian Games.
Naorem will take on Cai Yingying of China in the semi-finals. The loser will have to be content with a bronze medal.
Cai had defeated Kurniati Mei Yulianengsih of Indonesia 2-0 in the quarter-finals.
Later, Santosh edged out Phitak Paokrathok of Thailand 2-1 in the last eight stage of the men's sanda 56kg division.
Santosh will take on Bui Truong Giang of China in the semi-finals.
The Indian had started his campaign with a 2-0 win over Vietnam's Linn Thu Rain. He went on to defeat Zaid Ali Wazea of Yemen by a similar scoreline in the pre-quarterfinals.
Surya defeated Jean Claude Saclag of Philippines 2-0 in the quarter-finals of the men's sanda 60kg category. He will fight Iran's Erfan Ahangarian for a place in the final.
Surya had earned a hard fought 2-1 win over Abdul Haris Sofyan of Indonesia in his first match.
In the men's sanda 65kg quarter-finals, Grewal beat Akmal Rakhimov of Uzbekistan 2-0. He will meet Foroud Zafari of Iran in the semi-finals.
But there was disappointment in store for Indians in the men's sanda 70kg event as Pardeep Kumar lost 1-2 to Indonesia's Puja Riyaya.
Pardeep was leading 1-0 till the late stages of the second round when Puja earned a point to draw level. Puja went on to take the lead in the third round which ultimately proved to be decisive.
--IANS
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