PENG SHUAI convincingly kept the Asian Games women’s singles gold medal in Chinese hands yesterday when she clinched her second title of the Guangzhou Games.

    Her achievement was matched by India’s Somdev Devvarman who stunned top seeded Uzbek Denis Istomin to take the men’s singles, 24 hours after he and Sanam Singh had triumphed in the men’s doubles.

    Peng, who had linked up with compatriot Li Na to win the women’s team event, claimed a 7-5, 6-2 victory over Uzbekistan’s Akgul Amanmuradova in front of a packed house at the Aoti Tennis Center.

    After a tense first set, which featured five service breaks, the 24-year-old Peng breezed through the second, taking the title won by Zheng Jie in Doha in 2006 when the big-serving Amanmuradova dumped a lazy backhand into the net.

    It was one of 51 errors off her racquet on a depressing afternoon for Uzbekistan who had already seen Istomin, the world No. 40, lose surprisingly easily to Devvarman.

    “We don’t get too many opportunities to get together and play tennis. Here we had coaches, men’s players, women’s players and the home crowd cheering for us. It was a big advantage.”

    The 25-year-old U.S.-based Devvarman swept into a 5-0 lead in the first set, a precarious position from which Istomin never recovered.

    Devvarman was 3-1 ahead in the second set before the Uzbek briefly stopped the rot, but an eighth double fault of the final gave the Indian star a match point, which he converted into gold when Istomin went wide with a forehand.

    “It’s beyond my expectations. I told you that I didn’t really think about the gold medal,” said Devvarman, who is the first man in 26 years to win a singles and doubles gold at the same Games.

    “This is a tough competition and people in India get a little nervous, they even take vacations for the Asian Games.

    “There are 500 million people watching it on TV.”(SD-Agencies)