By Ravi Kant Singh, IANS
Hyderabad : India’s slender hope of making it to the semi-finals in the handball competition of the 4th Military World Games ended here, when they squandered a 15-14 halftime lead to go down 27-32 to Greece at the Saroornagar Indoor Stadium Wednesday.
Both India and Greece have lost two matches each and are out of the semi-final reckoning from Group A, where South Korea gave another polished display to put it past Lithuania 29-24.
Lithuania are firmly on course for the group’s other semi-final berth as they need only to beat the hosts Thursday to advance. Turkey also have an outside chance to make it to the last four if they defeat Greece and the Lithuanians lose to India.
In Group B there were no such calculations required as Belarus overpowered the United Arab Emirates 34-30 after the teams were tied 18-18 at the interval. Belarus completed the league engagements unbeaten to take the top spot, while UAE lost all their three games to go out without a point.
Latvia took the other semi-final spot from the group as they brushed aside Qatar 28-19. It was a straightforward race for the semi-finals between the two sides as both had lost to Belarus earlier.
The semi-finals will be played Friday and the title clash Saturday.