Shooter Harpreet Singh survived two rounds of nerve-wrecking shoot-off and brushed aside a penalty point docked on him to claim silver in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol event of the Commonswealth Games in Glasgow on Tuesday.

33-year-old Harpreet from Haryana saved India from disaster by bagging the silver after Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar failed to qualify for the final round after finishing seventh in the qualification round at the Barry Buddon Shooting Center.

Only the top six in the qualification round qualify for the final.

Harpreet, who topped the qualification round, hit 21 times on the target in the six-shooter final which had eight rounds of five shots each.

David J Chapman of Australia won the gold with 23 hits on target while Metodi Igorov of Canada bagged the bronze after a shoot-off.

Harpreet had won two gold in 2010 Commmonwealth Games in Delhi-25m center fire pistol singles and 25m center fire pistol pairs events.

The Karnal shooter jumped to the lead in the third round after hitting four targets out of five and kept the lead intact till the end of the fifth round before disaster struck in the next round.

Harpreet, who was leading by two hits, could get two hits but he was docked a penalty of one hit on account of ‘out of

time’ ruled by the judge.

A shooter gets four seconds after the red light on the target turns green, signalling to shoot.

From that dreadful sixth round, Harpreet got just one legal hit and that put him at tied third position with Canada’s Metodi Igorov on 15 hits, and he required a shoot-off to decide who would be eliminated as fourth-placed shooter.

Harpreet, however, won a nerve-wrecking two rounds of shoot-off as the first one saw both hitting three targets each.

With a medal secured, Harpreet came back in fine fashion to hit four targets in the penultimate round to tie with Chapman on 19 points before the round.

Just as Harpreet was about to snatch the gold in a sensational fashion, he faltered in the final round hitting just two targets while Chapman hit four targets to clinch the gold.