Elavenil Valarivan clinched a 252.4 silver in the women's 10m air rifle final, giving India its first medal of the Aichi‑Nagoya Games. She had dominated the early overs, but a string of three loose shots in the final six left her 0.6 points shy of Japan's Hinata Taichi, who set an Asian Games record of 253.0.
Taichi's record 253.0 left South Korea's Ban Hyojin with bronze at 230.4, while Valarivan broke a two‑Asian Games medal drought, having missed podiums in 2014 and 2018.
The turning point came in the final six shots—Valarivan's three misses opened the door for Taichi. Across the field, Suchika Tariyal punched India’s first MMA medal, beating Mongolia's Altanchimeg Baigalmaa 2‑0 in the 60kg quarterfinal. Cricket saw Shafali Verma erupt with a 49‑ball maiden T20I century, propelling India past Bangladesh 195/4 to reach the final, while the men's and women's hockey teams demolished Indonesia 13‑1 and Uzbekistan 19‑0, netting 32 goals.
PV Sindhu, Unnati Hooda and Tanvi Sharma swept the women's team badminton against Kazakhstan 3‑0, with Sindhu starting with a straight‑game win. The table tennis women rallied from 1‑2 down to beat Singapore 3‑2, but the men fell 0‑3 to Iran. Quimcy D’Souza came agonizingly close in teqball, losing two bronze‑medal matches within five minutes of each other.
India now faces Tuesday’s cricket final against Sri Lanka and continues its medal chase, with the hockey and badminton squads already locked into the knockout stages.