Somdev

Historic day for Somdev and India at Guangzhou

If CWG was all about shooter Gagan Narang, Asian Games for India has been all about Somdev Devvarman. The ace tennis star romped home the singles gold medal to make it a grand double for himself and for India. Somdev beat Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin in straight sets 6-1, 6-2. This is the first time ever in Asian Games history that an Indian men’s tennis player has won a gold medal

Somdev began the match with a bang breaking Istomin in the very first game and then going to hold his own serve for a quick 2-0 lead. He continued with the momentum early in the 3rd game when he won 2 break points but the big serving Uzbek kept himself in the hunt with some long rallies going his way. But, after an unending game that lasted no less than 15 minutes, Somdev came up with a baseline stunner to clinch advantage and Istomin double faulted immediately afterwards to give Indian the game.

With 2 early breaks, Somdev was never really going to lose momentum and that is what happened in the remainder of the first set as he broke Istomin for the 3rd game in a row and although Istomin engineered a mini comeback breaking Somdev for the first time in the 6th game of the set, it was a case of too little too late for the Uzbek as Somdev broke back again to wrap up the first set 6-1

First set statistics

	Somdev Devvarman	Denis Istomin
Aces	3	1
Double faults	1	5
Winners	7	9
Unforced errors	13	28
First serve points won	9	7
Break points converted	3/7	1/3
Set score	6	1