Twice in arrears, India scored late in the match to beat Malaysia 3-2 and begin their campaign in the men's hockey tournament on a winning note at the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday night.
Bharat Chinkara scored the match-winner with four minutes to go for the hooter.
Sandeep Singh and Dhananjay Mahadik had earlier brought the home side on level terms as the teams went into the breather 2-1
Lee-Hesh in quarter-finals
Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi had things their way as India ruled the tennis courts.
The top seeded and favorites sailed into the men's doubles quarter-finals with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Sri Lanka's Thangarajah Dineshkanthan and Amresh Jayawickreme in the first round.
Earlier in the day, top seed Somdev Devvarman survived a scare before progressing to the pre-quarter-finals of the men's singles tennis event at the Commonwealth Games. The Indian ace got past The Bahamas' Devin Mullings 6-4, 6-2 in the opening round.
Mullings gave home fans anxious moments by racing to a 4-1 lead in the opening set but Somdev clawed his way back in the match by winning five games in a row.
The thunderous forehands of the Bahamas' left-hander had left Somdev gasping but soon the blazing sun over the Centre Court took a toll on Mullings, who started suffering cramps, which played a part in preventing a huge upset in the men's singles.
Mullings took a medical time out in the seventh game of the first set and that changed the tide turned in the favour of Somdev.
The unforced errors started to flow from Mullings's racquet. Two long forehands handed Somdev two break chances and the Indian converted the second with a stunning double handed back-hand winner.
Again, unforced errors, this time a double fault handed Somdev a break in the third game of the second set.
Mullings lost his rhythm but was not ready to throw in the towel and fought hard. He earned two breakpoints in the sixth game but Somdev saved fist with an ace and second with a forehand winner.
A second break of serve put Somdev ahead 5-2 and an easy hold pushed the Indian to second round.
Later in the day, the top seeded Indian pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi will take on Sri Lanka's Dineshkanthan Thangarajah and Jayawickreme Amresh.
The women's pair of Nirupama Sanjeev and Poojashree Venkatesh will open their campaign against Maldives' Aminath Irufa Mahir and Aminath Maleela Solih.
Paddlers have it easy
India's women spanked Ghana 3-0 to enter the quarter-finals of the table tennis team event while their male counterparts consolidated their position by thrashing Guyana by an identical scoreline.
National champion Poulomi Ghatak beat Gyasi B Pokua 3-0 before her doubles partner Mouma Das spanked Ketu Akosua by the same margin.
Mamta Prabhu completed the thrashing with a 3-0 victory over Owusu-Agyei Efua Ofori in the women's Group D match.
The Indian men also put up an all-round performance in their Group B encounter.
A Amal Raj blanked Lewis Edinho Louis 3-0 before Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal spanked F Christopher Anthony by an identical margin. Ravichandran Abishek thrashed David Paul Anthony 3-0 to complete the rout.
Wrestlers earn India three gold
Wrestlers Ravinder Singh, Anil Kumar and Sanjay Kumar won gold medals to swell India's medals tally on the second day of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi on Tuesday.
Ravinder pinned down England's Terence Christopher in the second period after taking a convincing 7-0 lead to win the men's wrestling Greco-Roman 60-kg gold medal. In the very next bout, Sanjay edged past South African Richard Brian 1-0 in the men's wrestling 74-kg Greco-Roman category to take home the second gold medal of the event.
That was followed by Anil Kumar outclassing Hassene Fkiri of Australia 3-0 in the 96-kg Greco-Roman event to make it three out of three gold medals for the hosts.
Silver for shooters Tejaswini, Lajja
Women shooters Tejaswini Sawant and Lajja Goswami continued India's medal rush, winning the silver medal in pairs 50m rifle 3 position in the Commonweath Games at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range.
Tejaswini and Goswami finished with an impressive 1143 in prone, standing and kneeling stage, but still finished six points behind gold medallist Aqilah Sudhir and Xiang Wei Jasmine Ser of Singapore, who totalled 1149. Scotland's Kay Copland and Jen Mcintosh (1142) settled for the bronze medal.
Tejaswini, the first woman shooter to win a world championship gold, scored 575 (prone 194, standing 190, kneeling 191) while Lajja totalled 568, including a 193 in prone, but she fell behind in standing and kneeling stage, managing scores of 188 and 187.
Singapore's Aqilah totalled 581, after a solid 199 in prone, and a 190 and 192 in standing and kneeling stage, while Xiang Wei managed 568 (prone 194, standing and kneeling 187).
This was Tejaswini's second medal in a major competition in two months, after her gold medal triumph at the World Championships in Munich in August.
The shooter from Kohlapur had also won two medals in the last edition of the games in Melbourne - in 10m rifle.
Indian boxers pack a punch
Indian boxers opened their campaign in style with Amandeep Singh (49kg) and Manoj Kumar (64kg) advancing to the pre-quarterfinals, following thumping wins in their opening bouts of the Commonwealth Games.
Amid roaring cheers from home fans, Amandeep and Manoj made it a day to remember for the Indian boxing team, which by its own admission, is not used to fighting in front of so many spectators on the very first day of a competition.
While Commonwealth Championships gold-medallist Amandeep defeated Kenya's Peter Warui 6-2 for the second successive time this year, Manoj was so dominant against Sirrera Leone's Daniel Lassoyo that the referee had to award the bout to the Indian midway through the second round when he was leading 17-1.
Amandeep will next face Rawanda's Haziza Matusi and Manoj will now square off against Gomotsang Gaasite of Botswana.
Amandeep was the first boxer to step in and against an opponent he had defeated as recently as in the Commonwealth Championships in March and the Indian was confidence personified.
Unruffled by Warui's often wild attack, Amandeep kept his cool and tactfully exploited the Kenyan's weak defence.
It was a narrow 2-1 lead in the opening three minutes but Amandeep ensured that he never let it slip with his strong left-hand blows in the next two rounds to notch up a comfortable win.
"Since I had played him before, I knew that it was easy to get past him if I get a lead, which I got in the first round. He was down and tried to attack too much. I am quick on my feet and that also helped," Amandeep said after what he described as a rather "easy" first day in office.
"The crowd made it all the more easy for me. It was amazing to fight in front of such supportive spectators," he added, when asked whether the fans contributed to his win.
If Amandeep was about tact and composure, Manoj took the attack to Lassoyo with a combination of right uppercuts and body blows. Such was his dominance that Manoj was up 9-1 after the very first round. The Haryana-boxer, for whom it is a comeback of sorts after being in wilderness for more than two years due to a wrist injury, didn't let the tempo slip and kept up the pressure even in the second round.
Just about a minute before the end of the second round, Lassoyo faced his second count-out of the bout and the referee decided that the Indian was just too good for his hapless rival.
"No opponent is weak or strong. I gave my best and got the result and I am glad to have done it," he said.
"I am thankful to the crowd for spurring me on. That's what you call home advantage, it was fantastic," he added.
Australia's Meares, Sunderland win cycling golds
Australia won the men's and women's time trial races in Commonwealth Games record times, grabbing the first two gold medals in cycling at New Delhi 2010.
Olympic and world champion Anna Meares won the women's 500-meter time trial in 33.758 seconds, beating the record of 34.326 she set in 2006. Poland's Simona Krupeckaite holds the world record at 33.296 seconds.
Scott Sunderland won the men's 1-kilometre time trial in 1 minute 1.411 seconds, beating the games record of 1:01.726 set by Chris Hoy of Scotland at Manchester in 2002.
Meares' teammate Kaarle McCulloch took silver in 34.780 seconds in the women's race, while the bronze went to Becky James of Wales in 35.236 seconds.
The 22-year-old Sunderland was nearly 1.5 seconds faster than silver medalist Mohamad Rizal Tisin of Malaysia, who finished at 1:02.768. New Zealander Edward Dawkins took bronze at 1:02.777.
Jack Bobridge of Australia set a Games record in the men's qualifying round of the individual pursuit, finishing the 4,000-meter race in four minutes, 14.845 seconds.
Bobridge, who won the bronze medal in the event at the world championships, was competing against Peter Latham of New Zealand in the seventh heat.
The previous games record was 4:16.358, set by Bradley McGee of Australia in Manchester, England in 2002.
Khade in 50m butterfly semi-finals
Virdhawal Khade entered the semi-finals of the 50m butterfly stroke, even as six other Indian swimmers crashed out in different categories in the Commonwealth Games, at the Dr SPM Aquatics Complex in Delhi on Tuesday.
The para-sport swimmers brought smiles, as Kiran Tak (00:38.79s) and Anjani Patel (00:47.64s) progressed to the semi-finals in the women's 50m S9 women's freestyle.
However, Vineeta Pathak's timing of 52.58s was not good enough for her to move to the next stage.
Khade registered a timing of 24.72s to place eighth, but his compatriot Arjun Muralidharan could finish only in 26.37s and placed 20th. Only the top 16 make it to the next stage.
It was end of road for Jyotsana Pansare and Fariha Zaman in the women's 100m backstroke. They clocked 1:10.07s and 1:10.38s respectively and placed 20th and 21st in the heats.
More disappointment was in store for India in the women's 100m freestyle, as Talasha Satish Prabhu also crashed out in the heats after finishing 26th overall with a timing of 1:00.41s.
Aaron D'Souza (1:54.10s) and Rohit Havaldar (1:58.15s) bowed out in the heats of the men's 200m freestyle.
Indian shooters win two gold
India's shooters made a great start, winning two gold on Day 2 of the 19th Commonwealth Games, in Delhi, on Tuesday.
Olympic gold winner Abhinav Bindra and World champion Gagan Narang the first won gold medal, in the Pairs 10m Air Rifle event.
Then Rahi Sarnobat and Anisa Sayyed gave India the second gold, winning the in 25m Pairs pistol event.
Onkar Singh and Deepak Sharma won a silver medal in 50m Air Pistol Pair event.
Singapore won the gold medal through Swee Hon Lim and Bin Gai, who had�a total of 1094 shots.
Omkar and Deepak finished with 1087 points. Trinidad and Tobago took the bronze medal, with Roger Peter Daniel and Rhodney Richard Allen scoring 1081 points.
Lim scored 550 with a series of 95, 92, 90, 90, 90 and 93 while his teammate Gai shot a 544 with a series of 95, 90, 85, 95, 91, 88 in their gold medal winning effort.
Bindra scored 595 and Narang 498, creating a new Games record of 119.
The pair aggregated 1193, to better their own record, set four years ago in Melbourne when they notched 1189.
World record holder Gagan, coming off a none-too-impressive season, shot a spectacular sequence of 99, 100, 100, 99, 100, 100 for a total of 598, while Beijing Olympics gold medalist Bindra's series read 100, 98, 99, 100, 99, 99 for a total of 595 in the first shooting event of the Games.
England's James Huckle and Kenny Parr (1174) won the silver medal, while Bangladesh's Abdullah Hel Baki and Md. Asif Hussain Khan (1173) had to be content with bronze.
Both teams, however, were far behind the Indian duo of Bindra and Gagan.
"Many thought I'm a dictator, since I had imposed a gag order on the shooters prior to the Games. But whatever I was doing, I was doing for the country. And we have got the reward for that," said national coach Sunny Thomas.
Thomas, however, cautioned that instead of basking in the glory, it would be wise to focus on the coming events.
"This was easy but I am sure the coming events are going to be difficult. I am happy that both Gagan and Abhinav shot well today. It's certainly a good start for India and we hope to maintain the momentum," Thomas said.
