3 Bronze in Squash

India's squash singles campaign in the Asian Games yielded three Bronze medals after Saurav Ghosal, Dipika Palikal and Joshna Chinappa lost their respective semifinal clashes here on Saturday.

Saurav Ghosal frittered away a two-set advantage to lose the men's singles semifinal after Dipika Pallikal Karthik and Joshna Chinappa suffered defeats in the women's singles semifinals earlier in the day.

Irrespective of the defeats, this is India's best ever show in the Asian Games in squash singles. In the 2014 Asian Games, India won two singles medals -- Ghosal had a Silver and Dipika a Bronze.

Ghosal was going great guns but lost 12-10, 13-11, 6-11, 6-11, 6-11 to Chun Ming Au from Hong Kong in an intense semifinal.

Ghosal said he suffered an injury in his left leg towards the end of the second set and that took away the "intensity" from him.

"I don't want make excuses but it's hurting badly. Against this player, you need to have high intensity. Towards the end of the second game it flared and I lost my intensity. But credit to him for fighting back after losing two sets," Ghosal said.

"A lot of things go into a win. The body did not hold today but I have played good squash here," he said.

Dipika lost her semifinal to Malaysian great Nicole David, one of the most formidable players the game has seen.

Dipika led 5-2 and 4-1 in the first two games but three-time defending champion Nicol had enough experience to run away with a 11-7, 11-9, 11-6 win.

Nicol's agility, movement and anticipation was too good for Dipika.

"She is experienced and knows how to handle every situation, thrown at her. She was world number one for 10 years for a reason. I am happy I played well. It's unfortunate that I was in top-half to play with Nicol," Dipika said after her match.

Joshna was also up against a Malaysian in Sivasangari Subramaniam, who emerged a 12-10, 6-11, 11-9 winner in the second semifinal.

It was her maiden singles Asian Games medal for Joshna, who returned empty-handed in the previous three editions.

"The umpiring was dodgy. I have always felt like this when this referee is there. Anyway, Siva really played well. I have waited for this for long. I competed in three Asian Games but never won a medal," she said.

Dipika said she would try to forget the defeat and get focused on winning the Gold in women's team event.

"We have a Gold to achieve in team event. You can't think much about what has happened in the singles. It's hard to regroup and comeback but we have to do it. We don't want to celebrate as yet, we have a bigger target to achieve."

3 medals assured in bridge

India were on Saturday assured of two medals in the debut sport of bridge in the Asian Games after the men's team and mixed team reached the semifinals here.

After the qualification rounds, the men's bridge team was placed fourth while the mixed team took the top spot.

The men's bridge team was placed fourth after playing 13 qualification rounds while the mixed team finished on top after seven qualification rounds.

The top finishing team will play the fourth team while the second and third will take on each other in the semifinals.

Both the losing semifinalists will win a Bronze and India are assured of at least two Bronze medals from bridge.

The supermixed team, however, failed to qualify for the semifinals.

The sport of bridge has been introduced for the first time in the Asian Games.