the goan I network
PANAJI
India made it to the semi-finals of four events at the ongoing 3rd Asian Cup Bridge Championship at Miramar on Friday. The hosts teams entered the last-four stage in the ‘men’, ‘mix’, ‘super-mix’ and ‘seniors’ categories. However, India women failed to make the cut.
On the fourth and final day of the league stage, the Indian players performed admirably, especially in the Men’s event where they made a superb comeback to enter the
semi-finals.
India ‘B’ team consisting Debasish Rey, Sunit Choksi, Keyzad Ankleshria, Subhash Gupta, Sapan Desai, Raju Tolani and Ajay Khare came into the reckoning for the knock-out stages with some sharp planning and good understanding with the partners, to earn the semis berth. Overnight on sixth place, the hosts fought back to finish second and stay in the medal hunt.
Over in the Mix category, India ‘A’ under the captaincy of Anand Samant, maintained their good run to achieve 129. 22 points and advanced to the semi-final stage. In the Super-mix event, Japan booked their semis spot with a fine display that took them to the top with 268. 92 points while Indian A & B both finished second and third respectively.
The hosts team occupied third place in the Seniors section to qualify for the last-four stage behind China Taipei (150. 08 points) and China (143. 83), with India ‘B’ collecting 141.63 points. The knock-out rounds will be played on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Director of Sports and Executive Director of SAG, V M Prabhudesai hailed bridge game for its benefits especially to youngsters. “It is a mind sport and regular practice of bridge is known to enhance mathematical ability of children. In the earlier times, it was a convention that the highly qualified engineers and doctors used to play bridge regularly. We must now make an effort to take bridge to schools by getting rid of the card games taboo especially since the sport will be played at the upcoming Asian Games 2018,” Prabhudesai told The Goan on the sidelines of the Asia Cup. He also discussed the plans with Bridge Federation of India president Prasad Keni and secretary Anand Samant.
