Manika Batra crashes out of Singapore Smash in first round

SINGAPORE: India's run in the singles category came to an end at the Singapore Smash 2023 after the country's leading table tennis player in the women's category Manika Batra crashed out of the tournament. Batra's loss comes after Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran lost their respective men's singles matches on Saturday.

Manika Batra went down after putting up a valiant fight against Sweden's Linda Bergstrom. The hard-fought duel between both players lasted for 52 minutes. In the end, Manika lost the match by 3-2 (12-10, 6-11, 10-12, 11-8, 11-13).

The Indian table tennis player opened strongly to win the first game 12-10 and take a lead in the contest. It seemed as if Manika would finish the game in a matter of moments. However, the Swede fought back to win the next two games to take a 2-1 lead in the match.

Manika Batra made a strong comeback as she rallied to clinch the fourth game 11-8 to stay in the match. In the deciding moment, Batra took the fight to Bergstrom. Even playing with nerves of steel was not enough for the Indian to book her place in the next round.

All her efforts ended up only to see the Swede prevail 11-13 in a closely-fought game, knocking the Indian out in the first round.

Manika Batra will now partner with G Sathiyan in the mixed doubles match on Monday. The Indian pair will face Singapore's Chew Zhe Yu Clarence and Jian Zeng.

Manika Batra will also team up with Archana Kamath in the women's doubles. Both the pairs had received a first-round bye and will be starting the tournament from the second round.

Earlier, in the men's doubles, the Indian pair of Harmeet Desai and Manav Thakkar crashed out after going down 3-0 (11-4, 11-7, 11-6) to Argentina's Gaston Alto and Horacio Cifuentes in their round of 32 fixture.

Harmeet Desai and Manav Thakkar had earlier failed to get past the qualifying round in men's singles.