India’s Manika Batra, Sutirtha Mukherjee knocked out of Tokyo Olympics table tennis
Manika Batra fell in straight games to Sofia Polcanova in the third round and Sutirtha Mukherjee lost to veteran Fu Yu, ending India’s involvement in the women’s singles.
The curtains came down on Manika Batra’s campaign at the Tokyo Olympics after she lost in straight games to Sofia Polcanova of Austria in the women’s singles third round on Monday.
Sofia Polcanova beat the Indian table tennis player 11-8, 11-2, 11-5, 11-7.
Manika Batra was also knocked out of the mixed doubles earlier with Sharath Kamal. She had earned her first singles victory in the Olympics against Tin-Tin Ho and then upset the higher-ranked Margaryta Pesotska in the second round.
It proved to be a bridge too far for the giant-slayer against 10th seed Sofia Polcanova though.
In an even start at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, the 26-year-old Manika Batra exchanged a few good backhands but the Austrian found some good angles on her shots and eked out the first game.
Southpaw Sofia Polcanova, ranked 16th in the world, was at her dominant best in the second game, showing her attacking prowess on the forehand to quickly move into a two-game lead.
Manika Batra, world No. 63, began the third game well but applied too much power on a few shots and when she tried to compensate, her returns found the net.
Crucially, fellow 26-year-old Sofia Polcanova did not allow Manika Batra any time on her shots and was calm when the rallies went longer.
The Indian table tennis star continued to make errors and sent a backhand long to concede the match.
Sutirtha Mukherjee bows out of Tokyo 2020
Meanwhile, Sutirtha Mukherjee bowed out of the Tokyo Olympics after a straight-games loss to Portuguese veteran Fu Yu in the second round of the women’s singles table tennis.
Fu Yu, a world No. 55, beat Sutirtha Mukherjee 11-3, 11-3, 11-5, 11-5. The Indian table tennis player, ranked 95th, had earlier beaten the higher-ranked Linda Bergstrom on her Olympic debut.
However, Sutirtha was unable to repeat those heroics against Fu Yu. Both players were cautious to begin with but Sutirtha Mukherjee committed a few errors to drop the first game.
The 42-year-old Fu Yu was able to dictate the pace of the match at will, taking advantage of Sutirtha’s slow returns to nail her forehands and soon took a two-game lead.
The Indian table tennis player’s attempts to mount more attacks proved futile as Fu Yu was at her best defensively, which pushed Sutirtha back and induced more errors.
Though Sutirtha Mukherjee, 25, began the fourth game with more confidence, Fu Yu was rarely troubled as she focused on getting her returns in and took victory when Sutirtha netted a backhand smash.