Merchant, Habib bag gold
in snooker doubles

Yasin Merchant and Rafat Habib earned India its first gold medal at the Asian Games, winning the snooker doubles tournament on Tuesday.

The duo had an easy time while beating Hong Kong's Marco Ka Chun Fu and Chi Wai An in the final.

After losing the first frame 33-71, the Indians rallied splendidly to emerge easy winners at 74-20, 92-13, 78-21.

Pakistan's Mohammed Saleh and Naveen Kumar Perwani bagged the bronze medal. They beat Ku Chih-Wei and Lee Kun-Fang of Chinese Taipei 3-1.

Earlier, in the semi-finals, the Indian pair defeated Chih Wei Ku and Kun Fang Lee of Chinese Taipei 58-24, 81-22, 64-28.

Merchant and Habib had an easy time in the quarter-finals too. They defeated Chong Tim Sam and Ng Ann Seng of Malaysia by three frames to one, while in the pre-quarters, they beat Bukshaisha Mohsen A-ziz M and Al-Sada Ahmad of Qatar by a similar margin.