Image Courtesy- Times of India
India’s star table tennis player Manika Batra played her best game and won the second round match of the women’s singles event of the Tokyo Olympics against Ukraine’s Margaryta PeSotska. With this, Manika is only one step away from winning the medal. Manika beats World no. 32 Margareta by 4-11, 4-11, 11-7, 12-10, 8-11, 11,-5 and 11-7 in a second round match on the third day of the Tokyo Olympics on Sunday.
Batra’s start in this match was very poor as she lost the first two rounds against the Ukraine player. She then made a spectacular comeback and won the next two sets to level the score at 2-2. Then, Margaryta won the fifth game to take a 3-2 lead but Manika made a spectacular comeback in the sixth game to win 11-5 and leveled the score by 3-3. After this, she showed a great game in the seventh and deciding game and won this match by 4-3 to enter the next round.
Before this, in her first-round match played on Saturday, world number 62 Manika Batra won 4-0 against Britain’s Tin-Tin Ho in a one-sided victory. The match lasted a total of 30 minutes. Manika won this match against Tin-Tin Ho by 11-7,11-6,12-10,11-9.
Earlier, in the mixed doubles match played on Saturday, the pair of Manika and Sharath Kamal Achanta had to face defeat in the first round. The Indian pair was defeated by Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yun-Ju and Cheng I-Ching by a margin of 8-11, 6-11, 5-11, 4-11 in a one-sided encounter.