Bhavina Patel assures India maiden table tennis medal at Tokyo Paralympics

Bhavina Patel, on Friday, made history by becoming the first Indian para table tennis player to reach the semi-finals at the Paralympics. In the process, she also confirmed the first medal for India at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

Competing in the women’s singles class 4, Bhavina Patel stunned the defending Paralympic champion Borislava Peric of Serbia in straight games in the quarter-final of the Tokyo Paralympics.

The 34-year-old Indian paddler, ranked 12 in the world, defeated the world No. 2 and three-time Paralympic medallist 11-5, 11-6, 11-7 in just 18 minutes.

Bhavina has confirmed a medal since this is the first Summer Paralympics in which both losing semi-finalists will be awarded bronze medals.

Earlier, in the morning session, Bhavina Patel beat eighth-ranked Joyce de Oliveira of Brazil 3-0 (12-10, 13-11, 11-6) in the round of 16.

She will now face London 2012 silver medallist and world No. 3 Miao Zhang of China in the semi-final on Saturday.

The other highlight of the day was Indian archer Rakesh Kumar, who shot an impressive 699 points in the men’s compound ranking round to finish third on the table.

Rakesh’s compatriot Shyam Sundar Swami ranked 21 with 682 points. China’s Zihao He, with 705 points, set a new Paralympic record.

The recurve archers, Vivek Chikara and Harvinder Singh, also had decent outings on their opening day. Vivek finished 10th (609) while Harvinder was 21st (600) out of the 31 participants in the recurve ranking round.

Jyoti Balyan, the only female archer from India, ended 15th in the women’s compound ranking round despite putting up a season’s best performance of 671 points.

Rakesh Kumar and Jyoti Balyan will also team up for the mixed compound team event. They will be up against Thailand on August 29.

Along with the archers and Bhavina Patel, India’s first female powerlifter at the Paralympic Games, Sakina Khatun was also in action. She finished fifth in the women’s 50kg final with her best lift of 93kg while Jaideep Deswal could not complete any of his three attempts in the men’s 65kg powerlifting.

Indian shot putter Tek Chand, meanwhile, finished eighth in the men’s F55 event.