IMAGE: Manika Batra was crushed by Puerto Rico’s Adriana Diaz within the spherical of 32 on the World Table Tennis Championships in Durban. Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
Manika Batra fought exhausting earlier than taking place to Adriana Diaz of Puerto Rico 3-4 within the spherical of 32 on the World Table Tennis Championships in Durban on Wednesday.
Up towards Diaz, ranked thirteenth within the ITTF chart, World No 39 Manika took the primary sport earlier than her opponent stepped on the pedal. It was a reasonably balanced tie until the sixth sport with each the gamers locked at 3-3.
But Diaz ran away with the decider as Manika misplaced 3-4 (6-11, 12-10, 11-9, 6-11, 13-11, Sep 11, 11-3) to e book her place within the final 16.
Even although she misplaced, Manika managed to make sure one of the best consequence for India in singles competitors.
Achanta Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran then misplaced to English pair of Paul Drinkhall and Liam Pitchford 3-1 (11-9, 8-11, 12-14, 10-12) to crash out within the spherical of 16 of the lads’s doubles occasion.
The Indian mixture had defeated the identical English duo en path to a gold medal in final yr’s Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
Later within the day, Manika will pair up with Archana Kamath and tackle Japan’s Hina Hayata and Mima Ito within the spherical of 16 of ladies’s doubles.
