New Delhi: Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal won a bronze, defeating compatriot Soumyadeep Roy 4-0 in the men's singles third place play-off as Indian paddlers finished their campaign in the Commonwealth Games with five medals, including a gold, on Thursday.
Reigning national champion Poulomi Ghatak and Mouma Das also claimed another bronze for India, beating Australian duo of Tan Z Vivian and Campbell-Innes Peri 3-0 in the women's doubles' play-off at the Yamuna Sports Complex.
World number 40, Sharath started on a positive note by bagging the opening game 11-8 in front of almost a full house at the stadium complex.
In the second game, Soumyadeep tried hard to stage a comeback but Sharath showed consummate ease in playing long returns and bagged it 11-5.
The third game was, however, a keenly contested affair, which Sharath narrowly won 12-10 and then claimed the next one 11-9 to pocket the bronze.
"It was a hard game for me. Soumyadeep was the first to hug me after the gold medal match on Wednesday and today I was playing him. It is a different feeling from that of national level tournaments," Sharath said after the match.
"But I regret if I could have performed better yesterday in the semifinal and reached the final. Now the target is to do well in next month's Asian Games," the lanky paddler added.
Sharath, who failed to defend the singles title in the Delhi Games, was also happy with the overall performance of Indians paddlers.
"Last time in Melbourne (in 2006) we got three medals and this time we gave five medals -- all colours. So, I am happy with the performance. But I could have done better in singles," he said.
Sharath had lost to Singapore's Yang Zi 3-4, while Soumyadeep was drubbed 0-4 by another Singaporean, world number 17, Gao Ning in the men's singles semifinals on Wednesday.
Gao, however, had to content with the silver medal as he went down 1-4 to Yang in the gold medal clash.
Earlier, determined to make up for Wednesday's semifinal loss, Poulomi and Mouma took an attacking strategy from the onset and bagged the first game 11-4.
The Australians tried to force their way in the next, but the experienced Indian duo survived some early challenges before getting the better of their opponents 11-7.
In the third game of the best-of-five contest, it was rather an easy journey for the Indians as they comprehensively outplayed Vivian-Peri pair 11-1 to clinch the issue and claim bronze in the women's doubles category.
"It certainly looked easy, but we had to fight hard in the match. I would say our hard work paid off today. It is specially important because me and Mouma are childhood friends and we have been playing together since long," Poulomi said after the match.
"It's really a dream-come-true for us to win in front of the home crowd," she said.
Mouma added, "Both the coaches (Bhawani Mukherjee and Massimo Constantini) have played very important roles in our success. We want to give credit to them as well."
The Indians had lost to Singapore's Sun Beibei and Li Jiawei 0-3 in the final-four stage on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Beibei-Jiawei claimed the women's doubles gold, defeating compatriots Tianwei Feng and Wang Yuegu 3-2 in the final.
Sharath and former national champion Subhajit Saha had on Wednesday bagged the gold in the men's doubles after overcoming the Singaporean combination of Gao and Yang 3-2.
Indian women have already clinched a silver, while their men counterparts have fetched a bronze in the team events.
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