In the Olympic Games singles category, Indian table tennis player Manika Batra became the first player from her country to reach the round of 16.
In addition to being a formidable competitor at the Paris Games, Batra has been a major presence in the Indian arena.
With a score of 4-0, the 29-year-old, who won a gold medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, defeated Prithika Pavade, a player ranked higher in France, with a commanding performance.
Manika defeated 19-year-old Pavade, whose parents originally came from Puducherry before relocating to France in 2003, with game scores of 11-9, 11-6, 11-9, and 11-7.
Who is Manika Batra?
Delhi is the home base of Indian table tennis player Manika Batra. Manika, the youngest of three siblings, was first exposed to table tennis at the age of four, thanks to the influence of her brother Sahil and older sister Anchal, who were also players.
She trained under coach Sandeep Gupta at Hans Raj Model School after demonstrating her early talent in a state-level under-8 tournament.
Manika’s career took off after she won a silver medal in the 2011 Chile Open in the under-21 division. She finished in the quarterfinals both in the 2014 Asian Games and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow while representing India.
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Her breakthrough performance occurred during the 2015 Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, where she took home three medals, including bronze in the singles, silver in the women’s team, and silver in the doubles.
Career Highlights
Manika won three gold medals in the women’s doubles, mixed doubles, and women’s team categories at the 2016 South Asian Games. She qualified for the Rio Olympics that same year, although she lost in the opening round.
Manika’s greatest accomplishment was during the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, when she helped India defeat the formidable Singapore squad and win a historic gold medal in the women’s team category.
She also brought home four medals, including the first-ever silver one for India in the women’s doubles division and a historic gold in the singles division.
Manika’s success carried over into the following years, as she won team gold in the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships in 2019.
Monday’s performance surpasses Manika’s previous milestone at the Tokyo Olympics, where she became the first Indian women’s table tennis player to reach the round of 32 in singles.
Achanta Sharath Kamal had also advanced to the round of 32 in the men’s singles competition during the same Tokyo Games. Pavade is ranked 10 places higher than Manika, who is now ranked 28th in the world.
She won the WTT Contender Lasko women’s doubles and the Budapest mixed doubles in 2021. In 2022, she participated in the first-ever WTT Grand Smash tournament in Singapore, where she and Archana Girish Kamath set a career-high ranking of fourth in the world in the women’s doubles division.
