Image Courtesy- Times of India
There is bad news for India from the Tokyo Olympics, table tennis star Manika Batra was defeated by 10 seed Sofia Polcanova of Austria in straight sets of 8-11, 2- 11, 5-11, 7-11 in the third round of women’s singles. Manika gave a tough fight in the first game but after that, she was seen behind the Austrian player in all the sets. Austria’s Sofia Polcanova played very aggressively in the match, which Manika could not answer. Now the only challenge from India in table tennis in Tokyo is left in the form of Sharath Kamal.
Manika, who had earlier defeated players of higher rank than her, had no answer to the controlled and powerful game of world number 16 Polcanova. She lost the match by 0-4 (8-11, 2-11, 5-11, 7-11). Manika had earlier crashed out in mixed doubles with Sharath Kamal Achanta.
On the other hand, Sharath Kamal Achanta, playing his fourth Olympics in table tennis, made a good comeback from an early start to enter the men’s singles third round of the Tokyo Olympics table tennis event here on Monday but at the same time, Sutirtha Mukherjee was defeated in women’s singles straight games.
Sharath Kamal defeated 20th seed Tiago Apollonia of Portugal by 4-2 (2-11, 11-8, 11-5, 9-11, 11-6, 11-9) in a match that lasted 49 minutes. He will now face a tough challenge from defending champion Ma Long of China in the third round on Tuesday.