Golfer Mithun Perera loses early advantage:

Beach volleyball keeps medal hopes alive

Dinesh WEERAWANSA reporting from China

Sri Lanka's two teams in the men's beach volleyball entered the pre-quarter finals while golfer Mithun Perera lost his early advantage on day eight of the 16th Asian Games continued in this southern Chinese city today.

Both teams fielded by Sri Lanka in men's beach volleyball created history as they stormed in to the last 16, making Sri Lanka's medal prospects brighter. Sri Lanka's '1' team comprising of Mahesh Perera and Wasatha Ratnapala registered a convincing two sets to nil win over South Korea in their Pool 'H' match worked off this afternoon.

Playing an intelligent game, Mahesh and Wasantha combined their skills effectively with a greater understanding to make Korean duo of Gwangin and Junyong eat humble pie. The Lankan top pair took just 29 minutes to humble Koreans in style with an impressive 21-8, 21-11 victory.

The win enabled Sri Lanka 1 team to advanced to the pre-quarter finals, irrespective of the outcome of their last league game against Indonesia on Thursday afternoon.

Sri Lanka captain Mahesh Perera, speaking after their victory, said they made good preparations for the crucial game and had a good game plan. "We never thought this game against Koreans was going to be this easy.

We made a careful study of Korean tactics adopted in their game against Indonesia," said Perera, who had the fastest serve of the match at 73kmph. "Things are going pretty well but we will not take any chances. We will play hard and try to do well in the remaining games," a determined Perera said.

Sri Lanka '2' team, comprising Pubudu Ekanayake and Asanka Pradeep Kumara, too has been going great guns to emulate the feat of Perera and Ratnapala in making it to the last 16. Despite losing to China '2' nil-two 11-21, 11-21, Sri Lanka '2' could make it to the last 16 due to their victory against Yemen by two sets to nil. Unbeaten China '2' heads the Pool 'A' with two wins.

While the men's volleyball team kept the Lion flag fluttering high, shooter Mangala Samarakoon and golfer Mithun Perera, of whom much was expected as medal prospects, could not live up to expectations at the Dragon Lake Golf Club today.

Golfer Perera, the overall captain of the Sri Lanka contingent, after an encouraging round of golf on day one, lost his early grip. Perera who was placed second after Wednesday's round one, slumped to eighth place with a total of 143. He was unimpressive on round two with a net 74, compared to his first round score of 69. In contrast, Miguel Tabuena of the Philippines followed his round one score of 68 with an identical performance to head the list of 76 after round two.

The other Sri Lankan golfers looked off colour with Tissa Chandardasa (35th - 155), Vijitha Bandara (42nd - 157) and Thangaraja Nadaraja (46th - 161) way behind Perera. That contributed to Sri Lanka's downfall in the team championship. Sri Lanka, after securing the third spot after round one, dropped to eleventh with an aggregate of only 421, way behind the leaders South Korea with a 390.

Shooter Samarakoon fared poorly in his pet event. He was placed 35th out of 42 competitors who fired at the qualifying rounds of men's 50m rifle three-position event worked off at Aoti Shooting Range this morning. He had scores of 383 (prone), 361 (standing) and 375 (kneeling) to average 9.325, totaling 1,119 points. The most impressive shooter among the qualifiers were South Koreans Jinseop Han (9.742 - 1,169) and Jonghyun Kim (9.717 - 1,166).

Sri Lanka's Dinuka Karunaratne was thrashed by Indonesian Taufik Hidayat in a completely one-sided game which lasted just 23 minutes 14-21, 9-21 in Tianhe Gymnasium.

Ishara Madurangi was eliminated in the pre-quarter finals of the women's singles of the table tennis championships continued at the Guangzhou Gymnasium. Madurangi could offer little resistance in going down to Huajun Jiang of Hong Kong nil-four 2-11, 3-11, 5-11, 2-11 with all four sets lasting just 12 minutes.

At the International Rowing Center, Sanjeev de Silva and Kanishka Jayaratne were placed last in men's lightweight double sculls final race B worked off this morning. The duo, after being placed third by the first 500m, were never in the race and clocked a poor 7:02.40.

South Koreans Hongkyun Kim and Pyeon seok won the race in 6:47.02. Sri Lankans Navin Samarasinghe and Gihan Suwaris lost their respective men's singles first round matches. Kuwaiti Aamar Altemini, playing under the IOC flag, took just 28 minutes to overcome Lankan Samarasinghe nil-three. Samarasinghe, who was placed fifth in men's singles at the 2010 South Asian Games in Dharma earlier this year, fought well in the evenly contested first two sets but surrendered meekly in the third set and with it his first round tie 9-11, 9-11, 3-11 at AG Town Gymnasium. Suwaris went down to Japan's Shinnosuke Tsukue, also in straight sets 5-11, 3-11, 9-11 in 21 minutes.

At Guangdong Gymnasium court 'A', Sri Lanka's R.M.P. Ravindra Raja lost his men's under 80kg taekwondo bout to Jasur Baykuziyev on a points decision 0:4.

Joining the list of Sri Lanka's poor performers was Heshan Unanboowe who managed to finish only sixth in men's 50m back stroke qualifying round heat with a timing of only 27.76 seconds. Unamboowe was placed 19th out of 30 competitors who swam in the mean's 50m backstroke heats. Heading the list were Japanese Junya Koga (25.42 seconds in heat 4) and Ryosuke Irie (25.67 in heat 3). GUANGZHOU, Thursday