Chennai, May 27 (IANS): Indian men shook off a sluggish start to be at the top while their women's team placed themselves in the third position at the end of the second match of the first round robin league in the Bridge Federation of Asia and Middle East (BFAME) Bridge Championship at Hotel Chola Sheraton here Thursday.

Indian men's team, represented by Ashok Kumar Goel, Pritish Kushari, Bhabesh Saha, Suhas Baman Vaidya, Debabrata Majumdar and Sumit Mukherjee, led the field with 40 Victory Points (VPs) and were closely followed by Pakistan (39), Jordan (34) and Bangladesh (27).

Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka, the two other contestants in this meet, were at the fifth and sixth positions with 20 and 12 VPs, respectively.

In the women's section, Jordan were at the top with 36 VPs, followed by Pakistan (31), India (30) and Palestine (23).

The Indian women defeated Pakistan comfortably, but it was only enough to earn them a third place.

The men had a bad start, picking up 15 VPs against Bangladesh in their first match, but bounced back to beat Sri Lanka 25-1.

The women's team, represented by Rita Choksi, Bharati Dey, Geeta Lakhani, Yvette Singapuri, Prabha Kuder and Aparna Sain, fared poorly and lost to Jordan 11-19 but defeated Pakistan 19-11 in their next outing.

Earlier, the Pakistan duo of Tariq Khan and Tahir Masood won the Friendship Pair contest with an aggregate of 68 points.