Panjim (Goa): India finished the 5th Asia Cup Bridge Championship with three silver and one bronze medal, while Hong Kong China, Indonesia, China, and Australia clinched the gold medals across the four team categories here on Saturday.
India settled for a silver and a bronze in team events, while claiming two more silvers in pair events.
Hong Kong ‘A’, Indonesia, China ‘A,’ and Australia picked up a gold each, emerging the best in men, women, mixed, and seniors categories.
India also won two silver medals, finishing second in the Pairs event through Savleen Thadani and Sadhana Gupta, and Subir Majumder and Sujit Kumar Bhattacharjee in Women and Seniors group, scoring 519.11 and 303.60, respectively.
China won a gold and two silvers this time.
Indian Seniors ‘B’ team comprising Hemant Jalan, Sukamal Das, Rajesh Dalal, Jitendra Solani, Anil Padhye and Raju Tolani, with a carryover of 5.5 International Match Points (IMPs) started poorly, scoring only 8 IMPs in the first round against 33 by Australia.
In the second round, Australia maintained a slender lead of three IMPs (31-28). Though India put up a very strong fight to score 31 IMPs against 16 by their rivals, it was not enough and the Australians clinched the issue 80-72.5 IMPs.
Japan won the bronze, beating Bangladesh 153-86 IMPs.
In the bronze medal play off for men, India ‘A’ — represented by Subhash Gupta, Sandeep Thakral, Sumit Mukherjee, Rajeshwar Tewari, Sagnik Roy and Kaustabh Nandi — lived up to the expectation and defeated Bangladesh ‘B’ 133- 99.33 IMPs.
After putting up a good fight in the first round (37-38), Bangladesh ‘B’ succumbed to the pressure and lost the other two rounds 29-40 IMPs and 25-55 IMPs to finish fourth.
Hong Kong ‘A’ retained the gold, edging past strong contender China 105.67-99 IMPs.
In the women’s section, India ‘A’ failed to emulate the men’s team’s performance and lost to Japan 112.67-80 IMPs, trailing in all the three rounds.
In the mixed event, China ‘A’ defeated China ‘B’ 97-83 IMPs to win gold. Australia won the bronze, outplaying Hong Kong ‘ A’ 144-70.5 IMPs.
