Indian doubles pair of Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal Karthik settled for a bronze medal after losing to English duo of Jenny Duncalf and Alison Waters in the semifinals of the WSF World doubles squash championship in Manchester on Friday.
The second seeded Indian combo squandered an advantage to suffer a 11-6, 6-11, 8-11 loss to Jenny and Alison.
After winning the first game, the Indian pair looked good but the brief interval proved a big game-changer for the hosts as Jenny and Alison tightened their defence and varied the strokes to catch the Indians on the wrong foot mostly in the forecourt.
The Indians, though matched in the rallies, failed to make progress and went down fighting till the last.
Joshna and Dipika had earlier come back from a game down to beat the lower seeded Canadians Samantha Cornett and Nikole Todd 10-11, 11-6, 11-8 last night and that ensured that India will return with one medal at least.
In mixed doubles, Indian pairs of Saurav Ghosal and Dipika and Vikram Malhotra and Joshna Chinappa crashed out one after the other in the two quarterfinals held concurrently on side by side courts.
Manju bags bronze at Jr World Wrestling c'ship
Manju Kumari was the lone Indian woman to have won a medal in women's wrestling after clinching a bronze in 59kg category at the Junior World Wrestling Championship in Tampere, Finland.
Manju registered a 2-0 victory over Ilona Prokopevniuk of Ukraine in her bronze medal play-off bout last night to finish on the podium.
En-route to her third-place finish, Manju defeated Aleksandrina Nikolaeva Kashinova of Bulgaria 5-1 in the 1/8 stage before she was outclassed 0-10 by Japan's Yuzuru Kumano in the quarter-finals.
However, with the Japanese girl advancing to the final of 59kg, Manju got another life in the form of repechage and she did not waste the opportunity.
In her repechage bout, Manju got the better of Tianna Grace Kennett of Canada 4-0 to storm into the bronze-medal round.
India's campaign over at New Zealand Open
India's campaign at the New Zealand Open ended with H S Prannoy and Sourabh Verma crashing out after losing their respective quarter-final matches in the men's singles competition of the Grand Prix Gold event in Auckland.
Fourth seeded Prannoy fought hard before being stunned by Chinese Taipei's Lin Yu Hsien, seeded 11th, while seventh seed Verma went down tamely to unseeded Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong in straight games.
Prannoy, who had clinched the US Open title last month, was handed a 10-21, 22-20, 21-23 defeat in an hour and six minutes.
Former national champion Verma lost 19-21, 16-21 in a match that lasted just 42 minutes.
