India had to be content with a silver medal in the men's snooker team event at the ongoing Asian Games after losing their summit clash 1-3 to hosts China at the Town Gymnasium in Guangzhou on Monday.
The trio of Yasin Merchant, Brijesh Damani and Sneh Aditya Mehta failed to live up to the expectations and went down fighting to Junhui Ding, Liang Wenbo and Tian Pengfei 16-70, 51-46, 27-68, 0-96 in the final of team event.
In the first game, veteran Yasin was blanked by Ding 16-70 but Aditya drew parity for India, beating Wenbo 51-46 in the next.
The Chinese went ahead once again as the Indian duo of Yasin and Aditya failed to lift their game at crucial junctures, losing the doubles encounter to Ding and Pengfei 27-68.
Wenbo then thrashed Yasin 96-0 in the fourth rubber to pocket the gold medal in the hosts favour.
Earlier in the day, Yasin, Aditya and Brijesh outclassed Pakistan 3-0 in the semifinals to ensure India at least a silver medal.
Aditya defeated Sohail Shehzad 84-8 in the first frame before Yasin got the better of Imran Shehzad 75-45 to make it 2-0 for India.
Brijesh and Yasin then paired up in the doubles to register a 91-61 victory over Shehzad and Shahram Changezi.
By virtue of the silver, India had bettered its bronze medal-winning performance in the last Asian Games four years back in Doha.
Cue sports has so far fetched three medals for India in the ongoing quadrennial mega-event with star cueist Pankaj Advani successfully defending his title in the English Billiards singles category while Alok Kumar securing a bronze in the men's 8-ball pool singles on Sunday.
