Manika Batra’s splendid run at the Paris Olympics came to an end with a defeat against higher-ranked Japanese Miu Hirano, hours after her compatriot Sreeja Akula celebrated her birthday by reaching the women’s singles pre-quarterfinals in the table tennis competition on Wednesday. Seasoned Manika had become the first Indian to progress to the Round of 16 at Olympic Games on Monday and Sreeja joined her in the pre-quarterfinals with a 4-2 win over Singapore’s Jian Zeng. Up against Miu, who has been in tremendous form, Manika lost 6-11 9-11 14-12 8-11 7-11 in the pre-quarterfinals.
Manika enjoyed healthy lead in two of the games but Miu upped her game with pacy strokes to deny the Indian more history.
Manika took some time to settle and lost the first game in a jiffy but contained her errors, played more aggressively to zoom to a 5-1 lead in the second game.
The Japanese closed the gap by using her pacy strokes, which Manika struggled to handle. She was put on the backfoot as Miu took a 9-7 lead. A backhand error from Miu made it 9-9.
Manika handed her rival game point by hitting an angled forehand out. A repeat of shot put her down 0-2 in the match.
The Indian paddler had a great chance to mount a comeback as Miu hit a flurry of unforced errors in the third game, especially from the backhand side. Manika had a commanding 7-2 lead but Miu yet again erased the deficit to make it 9-9.
Manika held her nerves to save three game points as Miu hit a backhand long to give the Indian her first game point and netted the next shot to hand a new lease of life to the Indian.
The 29-year-old Delhi player changed her approach, adding a tinge of aggression in the game in which she trailed 2-6 but fought back resiliently. She logged four straight points to level the score.
Manika hit a lot of shots on the backhand of her rival but Miu was up for the challenge and returned extremely well. She found her first game point when Manika hit a forehand out at 8-9. A backhand error on next point gave a 3-1 lead to the Japanese.
The fifth game was one-way traffic, with Miu racing to a 5-1 lead in no time as unforced errors continued to come from Manika’s racquet. She closed the gap to make it 6-8.
However, two backhand errors from Manika gave Miu four match points. Miu sealed the match when Manika hit a forehand long.
Earlier in the day, Sreeja rallied to progress to pre-quarterfinal with 9-11 12-10 11-4 11-5 10-12 12-10 win.
Sreeja will take on China’s world number one Sun Yingsha in the pre-quarterfinals.
