A little more than a decade ago, an unassuming, chirpy 16-year-old girl made her maiden voyage with the Indian team. The child prodigy had been making rapid progress on the ITF circuit, where she had made her debut aged 15.

The Asian Games were purely meant to be an exposure for her. But the youngest member of the touring party, Sania Mirza, went on to win the mixed doubles bronze medal at the Busan Asian Games partnering Leander Paes. A journey, which began 12 years ago, came a full circle in the same country and in a city not more than 300km from Busan.

Sania, this time the most-experienced player on the Indian team, clinched the mixed doubles gold medal with Saketh Myneni on Monday. It was her eighth Asiad medal and second of the Incheon Games, after she earlier won the women’s doubles bronze with Prarthana Thombare. “Incidentally, Anand Amritraj was the team captain even back then. This time, however, I returned to South Korea as the senior-most player, which was a weird feeling initially,” Mirza said.

India matched their performance from the 2010 Asiad, which under the circumstances they came in is highly commendable. Old warhorse Paes along with Somdev Devvarman and Rohan Bopanna had given Incheon a miss, opting to play on the ATP tour in search of some valuable ranking points and salvage their sinking season. In their absence, the title defence was left to a clutch of journeymen who haven’t had a steady season themselves. And they didn’t disappoint. Yuki Bhambri won two bronze in the men’s singles and doubles with Divij Sharan while Sanam Singh and Myneni won silver in the men’s doubles event.

Mirza herself wasn’t too keen on playing the Asian Games, but once her entry into the World Tour Finals looked certain, she decided to join the team.

In the decade that has passed since she made her Asian Games debut, Sania has been an integral part of the Indian team. She has seen the team go from being no-hopes to medal contenders at the Asian Games. India have won a medal at every edition since. Mirza herself has won eight medals (two gold, three silver and three bronze). “This time we didn’t have our strongest team and were not the strongest contenders for medals, but people still expected us to win,” she said.

A long wait

Mirza waited, somewhat impatiently, for more than six hours for the rains to subside so that the mixed doubles final could get underway. The duo combined well to clinch gold as India’s tennis campaign at the Asian Games concluded with a haul of five medals. The second seeds overwhelmed the top-seeded Chinese Taipei pair of Hao Ching Chan and Hsien Yin Peng 6-4, 6-3 in 69 minutes.

Even though Myneni was playing his second match of the day, he hardly looked jaded. And understandably so. In his men’s doubles final, Myneni was reduced to a mere spectator after the South Korean duo Yongkyu Lim and Hyeon Chung identified Singh as their weak link.

The rain delay and an interruption at a crucial juncture in the second set upset their rhythm somewhat. But the Koreans, aware of Myneni’s powerful returns, consciously avoided hitting at his direction and continued to single out Singh. The Indians eventually lost 5-7, 6-7(2).

The defeat for the fifth-seeded Indian men meant that Singh could not win a second consecutive gold at the Asian Games, having won gold with Somdev Devvarman at the Guangzhou Games in 2010. Myneni, playing at the Asian Games for the first time, was not only effective with his big service game, he was very agile at the net, firing a lot of volleys for winners. “The rain delays broke our momentum a bit. But if you would have said I would return with a gold and silver before I came here, I would have taken it gladly. So I’ve no complaints,” Myneni said.