Tokyo Olympics | Manika Batra stuns Ukraines's Margaryta Pesotska to reach third round
The Hindu
Sathiyan stunned by Lam Siu Hang of Hong Kong
Manika Batra surprised 20th seed Margaryta Pesotska of Ukraine to enter the women’s singles third round while leading paddler Gnanasekaran Sathiyan was stunned by Lam Siu Hang of Hong Kong in the men’s singles second round of the table tennis event at Tokyo on July 25. On July 24, the Indian table tennis contingent was in the news for all the wrong reasons, despite Sutirtha Mukherjee winning her women’s singles first round. While Manika and A. Sharath Kamal staged meek surrender in the mixed doubles round of 16, Manika’s refusal to let national coach Soumyadeep Roy advise her during the coaching after her personal coach Sanmay Paranjape was denied competition area access forced the table tennis Team Leader M.P. Singh lash out publicly against her. However, come Sunday and Manika didn’t let the controversies affect her against a solid opponent. Not only is Pesotska ranked higher than Manika but is renowned to be one of the few Euopean paddlers to have mastered the art of playing against players with long pimples, like Manika.More Related News