Uzbekistan, India win tennis golds in Asian Games
Phil Brown, Associated Press, Busan, South Korea
She no longer is just Martina Navratilova's doubles partner. Iroda Tulyaganova won an Asian Games tennis gold medal Friday, a day when most medals were decided in combat sports.
Tulyaganova gave Uzbekistan its eighth gold of the games by upsetting top-seeded Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand 6-1, 6-3, and said later that Navratilova had helped with her game.
The former world No. 1 men's doubles pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, back together to win gold for India, did it by beating South Korea's Chung Hee-seok and Lee Hyung-taik 6-2, 6-3.
Bhupathi wasn't able to capture a second gold, however. He and Manisha Malhotra lost the mixed doubles final 4-6, 6-3, 9-7 to Taiwan's Lu Yen-hsun and Janet Lee.
For once, China wasn't a big winner, adding just two golds to a collection that now has grown to 129.
South Korea swept all four of the day's gold medals in its native martial art of taekwondo and added two in modern pentathlon, which also involves fighting skills.
That gave the South Koreans 73 golds, well ahead of third- place Japan's 41.
Japan gained two golds by showing good form in karate.
For China, world championships silver medalist Wang Tianling won on the 3-meter springboard, giving his nation its sixth gold in six diving events so far.
The Chinese women's field hockey team beat four-time gold medalist South Korea 2-1. It gained a hotly disputed key goal when the umpire penalized South Korean goalkeeper Park Yong-sook for shuffling her feet during a penalty flick attempt by China's Fu Baorong.
Japan won the bronze with a 2-0 victory over India.
North Korea clinched the women's soccer gold with a 4-0 victory over Vietnam on the final day of round-robin play. China beat South Korea 4-0 and won the silver. Japan took the bronze after defeating Taiwan 2-0.
On the tennis court, Paradorn Srichaphan kept Thailand's gold medal hopes alive by advancing to the men's singles final with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over another Uzbek player, Oleg Ogorodov.
On Saturday, he will meet South Korea's Lee Hyung-taik, a 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 winner over Japan's Takao Suzuki.
Tulyaganova called her gold medal match "one of my best victories because it was for my country, not for myself."
She played doubles with Navratilova at the U.S. Open, where they lost in the third round, and said the two plan to play together for the rest of the year.
"My weapon is my serve," Tulyaganova said. "Tammy is a very good player but I didn't give her a chance to play."
In the WTA rankings, Tamarine is 27th and Tulyaganova 40th.
Paes and Bhupathi needed four match points to win. The clincher was a backhand by Bhupathi that skipped off the netcord and over the Koreans' rackets.
South Koreans Kim Mi-sub, Yang Jun-ho and Han Do-ryoung took the top places in modern pentathlon, which includes swimming, shooting, fencing, horse riding and running. But China's Qian Zhenhua was given the bronze under rules limiting one nation to two medals per event.
South Korea also won the team competition.
In taekwondo, it had victories from men's flyweight Kim Dae- ryung, men's welterweight Oh Seon-taek, women's flyweight Lim Su- jung and women's welterweight Kim Su-ok.
Japan's karate winners were defending champion Atsuko Wakai in women's competition and Yukimitsu Hasegawa in men's in the kata event, which is judged strictly on form.
In women's combat events, Vietnam's Kim Ahn Vu won in the 53- kilogram class and compatriot N. Trong Bao Ngoc won at over 60 kilograms. Malaysia's Premila Supramaniam won at 60 kilograms.
Men's combat winners were Kuwait's Ahmad M.F. Mohammad at 75 kilograms and Iran's Mehran Behnam Far at over 75 kilograms.
Karate brought the first medals of the games for two teams - Macau and Brunei.
In boxing, semifinals in six weight classes sent four men from Kazakstan, three from Pakistan, two each from Thailand and Uzbekistan and one from South Korea into gold medal matches.
The lineup for Saturday's six semifinals includes six from South Korea and five from Uzbekistan.