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Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal and former National champion Subhajit Saha ensured that table tennis contributes a gold to India's medal haul in the Commonwealth Games by overcoming Singapore's Gao Ning and Yang Zi 3-2 in the men's doubles final on Wednesday.
World number 40 Sharath, who lost to Yang in the singles semi-finals earlier in the day, earned sweet revenge when he joined forces with the Bengal paddler to clinch the doubles title in front of a packed gallery at the Yamuna Sports Complex.
The Indian combo lost the opening game 9-11, but showed great character to wrest the lead, bagging two successive games 12-10 and 11-4.
The Singaporeans however drew parity by winning the fourth game 11-5.
But the Indians held their nerve in the deciding game of the best-of-five contest, amid loud cheers from the spectators, to clinch it 11-8 and lay their hands on the gold medal.
"This is the first time we have won the gold in men's doubles, so its certainly historic. Personally, this has given me more satisfaction than my singles performance in the Delhi Games," Sharath said after the triumph.
"We decided to adopt aggressive strategy and Sharath came back really strong after his semi-final defeat in singles. We could not have expected anything better than this," Saha added.
Sharath-Saha had beaten Andrew Baggaley and L Pitchford of England 3-2 in semi-finals earlier on Wednesday.
The England pair clinched the bronze, beating Australians R Frank and W Henzell 3-2 in the third-place play-off.
India are now assured of at least one more medal from table tennis at the mega-event as it will be an all-Indian encounter between Sharath and Soumyadeep Roy for the men's singles bronze on Thursday.
The Indian women had already clinched a silver, while the men won a bronze in the team events.
