At 10-8 in the 5th game with the gold medal on the line, it would have been natural for most Indians to assume the match was as good as over. Everyone around the squash centre court on Saturday here did too. Except that no one told Abhay Singh about it. The 25-year old held his nerves, took off four straight points against Noor Zaman and then let out a huge roar, throwing his racket into the stands as the Indian men’s team reclaimed the Asian Games gold in style, defeating Pakistan 2-1 in the decider of the final match.
“Thank you to everyone for being there. As much as it was quiet and haunting to be down for most of the match, all the shouting and the India cheering just pushed me to go. This one is for all the billion plus of us -- we come here, forget about ourselves, fighting for our flag. There was a lot of noise when we lost to Pakistan three nights ago, I am pretty sure I won’t hear any of that tonight,” he said after the game.
Moments before, he had struggled to control his tears and emotions speaking back home and not ashamed to show it. The moment allowed him too. India had lost the opening tie 3-0 with Mahesh Mangaokar going down to Nasir Iqbal for the second time in three days, the match interrupted often but not as ill-tempered as the previous one. Saurav Ghosal got one back with a clinical 3-0 win against Mohd. Asim Khan as everything boiled down to the final match that lasted longer than the previous two combined.
