Hong Kong China “A”, Indonesia, China “A” and Australia picked up a gold each emerging best in the Men, Women, Mixed and Seniors categories while host India settled for a silver and a bronze which were earned by their Seniors and Men “A”, team on the concluding day of the Bonus 5th Asia Bridge Cup at Taj Cidade de Goa Horizon, Dona Paula on Saturday.
India also won two silvers finishing second in the Pairs event through Savleen Thadani & Sadhana Gupta and Subir Majumder & Sujit Kumar Bhattacharjee in Women and Seniors group scoring 519.11 and 303.60 respectively. China which raised a big hope till the semi finals remained contended winning 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 which was contesting against Australia with a carry over 5.50 International Match Points (IMPs) , started poorly scoring only 8 IMPs in the first round against 33 by Australia.
In the second round both the teams fought almost evenly with Australia maintaining 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 , which was however , not enough and the Australians clinched the issue by a total of 80 – 72.5 IMPs.
Japan won the bronze in this section beating Bangladesh by 153- 86 IMPs.
In the match for 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” leading in all the three rounds scoring 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 China”A” retained the Gold edging past strong contender China by 105.67 – 99 IMPs.
In the Women section India “A” team which was alao contesting for a bronze , however , failed to emulate India “A” Men team`s performance and lost to Japan 112.67 – 80 IMPs trailing in all the three rounds.
The Mixed event which was an all China affair saw China “A” winning the Gold defeating compatriots China “B” by 97-83 IMPs. Australia won the Bronze in this group outplaying Hong Kong China “ A” 144 – 70.5 IMPs.
