India's star sprinter Hima Das qualified for the 400m final with a new national record as she timed exact 51.00s breaking a 14-year-old record set by Manjit Kaur (51.05s) in Chennai in 2004.
Hima ran with Bahrain's Salwa Naser, who is favourite to win the event and won the Heat 1 with a new Games record.
Also qualifying for the 400m final was Nirmala Sheoran, who stood fourth overall with a timing of 54.09s. It was best effort in Heat 3.
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National champion Dutee Chand, competing in her first big event after winning her gender case at the CAS, qualified for the semi-finals of the women's 100m with a timing of 11.38.
Running in lane 4, Dutee edged out Kazakhstan's Olga Safronov (11.46) and Uzbekistan's Nigina Sharipova (11.59) to win Heat 2.
The effort was slightly slower than her national record (11.29) and the timing of 11:32 with which she had won gold at the National Games.
Asian champion Muhammed Anas also emerged as a strong gold medal contender in the men's 400m by qualifying for the final with a timing of 45.30s. It was fastest time in the semi-final.
Anas cut down on his timing from the Heats as he had clocked 45.63 in the morning session.
Arokia Rajiv also joined him in the final by clocking 46.08 in the semi-finals. Chasing Anas are Mohammed Abbas (45.59), Abdalellah Hassan (45.83).
There was more good news for the Indian camp with Chetan Balasubramanya qualifying for the final of high jump by clearing 2.15m but none of the 13 qualifiers could qualify with the automatic qualification mark set at 2.20m.
Chetan began with 2.05m and easily cleared the jump. After clearing 2.10m, he cleared 2.15 in his second attempt.
Making to the final of long jump was Sreeshankar with an effort of 7.83m, which was fourth best today behind Yuki Hashioka of Japan (8.03m), Jianan Wang (7.89) and Yaoguang Zhang (7.84) of China.
There was, though, disappointment for Sarita Romit Singh, who finished fifth in the hammer throw after clearing a distance of 62.03m, which was way behind than podium finishers N Luo (71.42), Z Wang (70.86) and H katasuyama (62.95).
In the women 10,000m, Suriya Loganathan (32:42.08) and Sanjivani Baburao (33:13.06) faded towards the end to finish sixth and ninth respectively.
(With inputs from PTI)
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