New Delhi: Somdev Devvarman of India became the first Commonwealth Games men's singles champion on Sunday, cruising to a 6-4, 6-2 win over Greg Jones of Australia.
The top seed's win had local fans on their feet, 24 hours after the despair of seeing Indian glamour girl Sania Mirza lose the women's singles final in a deciding tie-break to Anastasia Rodionova of Australia.
Devvarman, who has broken into the ATP top 100 this year after a successful US college career, had yet to drop a set all week, but he found fifth seed Jones a handful to start with.
But after pocketing the first set with a single break, he took total command of the second, running off five games in a row with two breaks of serve to lead 5-0.
Earlier, archers, wrestlers and shooters bagged four golds between them, taking India within striking distance of its record Commonwealth Games gold medal haul of 30 achieved eight years ago.
More gold
Deepika Kumari, the 16-year-old archery sensation, set off yesterday's gold haul by winning in the individual recurve. Shooter Harpreet Singh, archer Rahul Banerjee and wrestler Sushil Kumar bagged a gold each in their events to keep India in the second position in the overall medal count.
There was disappointment, however, as India's most experienced archer Dola Banerjee could bag only a bronze. Deepika Kumari, daughter of an auto-rickshaw driver in Ranchi, became India's first individual gold winner from archery in the Games. She beat Athens Olympics bronze medallist Alison Jane Williamson of England 6-0. Dola won the bronze after beating Malaysian Anbarasi Subramaniam 6-2 in the third place play-off.
Rahul Banerjee added the second gold from archery, winning the men's individual recurve.
What did you think of their performance? Do you think their success in other sports will encourage Indians to look beyond cricket?
