Matthew Abeysinghe miss out on first medal for SL

On a busy day for Sri Lankan swimmers in the GBK Aquatic Centre, Abeysinghe was the only Sri Lankan swimmer to make to a final.

And even though he improved on the time he clocked in the heats, of 49.48 seconds, which saw him qualifying for the final as the fourth fastest, his time of 49.28s in the medal-deciding swim was more than half a second behind Shinri Shioura of Japan who won the Gold and only sixth best.

Kyle Abeysinghe also participated in the heats of this event but was placed 13thoverall with a time of 50.14s and missed out on the finals.

In the Men’s 50m butterfly event, neither Akalanka Peiris nor Cherantha de Silva clocked a good enough time to make the finals, finishing as 25th and 26th overall fastest with times of 25.20s and 25.36s respectively in their heats.

Peiris also took part in the Men’s 200m backstroke event but his time of 2:12.14s was enough for only a 16th place finish among 22 swimmers.

Badminton

There were disappointing returns for Sri Lanka on the badminton court as well, with Kavidi Sirimannage the only shuttler to have success with a 2-0 (21-4, 21-4) win over Shatha Almutairi of Saudi Arabia in the round of 32 in the Women’s singles event.

It was in the same stage of the same event that Thilini Hendahewa faulted in, losing in two sets (6-21, 4-21) to Fitriani Fitriani of Indonesia.

Sirimannage and Hendahewa teamed up for the Women’s Doubles, but lost their round of 32 encounter to Yu Zheng and Jinhua Tang of China in straight sets (13-21, 12-21).

Hendahewa lost her third match of the day when she teamed up with Sachin Dias losing their Mixed Doubles match against Vietnamese duo Do Tuan Duc and Pham NhuThao two sets to one.

The Sri Lankan pair won the first set 21-13, but lost the next two 12-21 and 13-21.

There was no success for the Karunaratne brothers, Niluka and Dinuka, as they lost their Men’s Doubles round of 32 match against Choi Solgyuand Kang Minhyuk of South Korea 16-21, 17-21.

Buwaneka Goonethilleka partnered Dias in another round of 32 match against Macau’s Pui Ngaiche and Pang Fongpui which the Sri Lankan pair lost 11-21, 8-21.

Volleyball

The Sri Lanka Men’s Volleyball Team however, kept their hopes alive with a 3 sets to 0 win over Vietnam in their Pool ‘E’ encounter.

The first set was closely contested with Sri Lanka edging-out their opponents 25-23 before winning the next two sets by the identical margin of 25-18.

Beach Volleyball

The fifth day of competition was the last for Sri Lanka’s Men’s beach volley ball players Asanka Pradeep Kumara and Sashimal Malintha Yapa, who lost their final group game to Ahmed Janki and Cherif Samba of Qatar two sets to 0.

It was an easy win for the Qatari pair who won 12-21, 11-21.

Squash

It was also the end of the road for a quartet of Sri Lankan squash players as they were all eliminated in the round of 32 stage.

In the Men’s draw, Shamil Wakeel lost 0-3 to India’s Saurav Ghosal while Mohammed Adnan of Malaysia also recorded a straight set win over Sri Lanka’s Ravindu Laksiri.

On the Women’s side of the competition, Fathoum Issadeen and Mihiliya Methsarani lost their singles matches to Satomi Watanabe of Japan and Sivasangari Subramaniam of Malaysia respectively. Both matches were won in straight sets.

Taekwondo

There was momentary joy for Kumudu Wijerathna in the Women’s taekwondo - 49kg category as she beat Pakistan’s Syed Zadi Sidri Batool 28-14 in the round of 16, before losing to Miyu Yamada of Japan 8-32 in the quarter-finals.

Sajeev de Silva also had success in the Men’s recurve Individual beating Nepal’s Roshan Nagarkti 6-0 in the 1/32 eliminations round, before losing 2-6 to Wei Chunheng of Taipei in the next round.

Baseball

Meanwhile, a 3-14 defeat to Thailand meant that Sri Lanka’s Baseball Team failed to qualify for the main draw of the competition, with the Thai Team taking the eighth and final spot in the tournament.

The Men’s Kabaddi team meanwhile also ended their campaign after losing to South Korea 22-33. 

Sri Lanka's golfers Sisira Kumara, Joseph de Soysa and Sachin de Silva were in first round action in the Men's Individual event, at the end of which Kumara was the best placed, tied for 18th, with a score of one over par 73. 

De Silva was tied for 27th with a score of two over par 74, while de Soysa, with a score of seven over par 79, was tied for 56th. 

That meant Sri Lanka were 12th in the Team event, at the end of the round with a score of 10 over par 226.