Asian Games: India wins women's skeet team bronze; Jay Meena secures medal in soft tennis

Nagoya: India added another medal to its tally at the Asian Games 2026 as the trio of Parinaaz Dhaliwal, Razia Dhillon, and Maheshwari Chauhan won a bronze medal in the women's skeet team event here on Wednesday.

After three days of qualification rounds, Parinaaz, Raiza, and Maheshwari shot a total of 331 in the qualification to finish with third on the podium behind the Chinese team of Che Yufei, Jian Yiting, and Jiang Chaoyu, who took the gold with 347, and Kazakhstan (Assem Orynbay, Zoya Piskun, and Adel Sadakbayeva), who pocketed silver with 336, IANS reported.

Earlier, double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker qualified for the 10m air pistol final after finishing third in the qualification with a total score of 579-20x. However, it was an agonising end for the Indian trio Esha, Manu and Suruchi in the team final as two inner-10s stand between India and bronze medallists Vietnam.

With the skeet women's team bronze, India's medal tally in shooting events rose to seven, including four silver and two bronze. At the previous edition of the Asian Games, held in Hangzhou, India claimed seven golds, nine silvers and six bronze medals for an unprecedented haul of 22 medals.

Meanwhile, Jay Meena secured India's first-ever medal in soft tennis at the Asian Games after a sensational comeback win over Sherwin Nuguit in the quarter-final. Locked 3-3 before the final game, Meena was trailing 3-5 in the final game before clawing back to win the next four points and eventually taking the quarter-final 4-3 to make it to the last four, where he will face the winner of the quarterfinal between Japan’s Takuya Kurosaka and Chinese Taipei’s Yu-sung Chang.

The losing semi-finalists will clinch bronze while the winners proceed to the gold medal match.

In the overall medal tally, India is currently eighth, with one gold, four silver and three bronze. In the 2023 edition, India finished in fourth place with a historic total of 107 medals.