Gold Coast, April 8: Manika Batra inspired India to a historic gold medal with her stunning singles victories, fashioning an unthinkable 3-1 victory over four-time gold medallists Singapore in the final of the women's team event at the Commonwealth Games here.
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World No. 58 Batra first scored the biggest win of her career by humbling world number four and multiple Olympic medallist Feng Tianwei 3-2 before brushing aside 100th-ranked Yihan Zhou 3-0 to engineer a sensational win over the mighty Singapore side.
First #Goldmedal ever in this event sounds so awesome . 😊😊👏👏👏🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🥇🥇#GC2018TableTennis #GC2018 INDIA #Indianwomensteam #tabletennisindia #ManikaBatra
— Parupalli Kashyap (@parupallik) April 8, 2018
It was mother of all upsets as prior to this final, the Singapore women's team had never lost in the Commonwealth Games since the sport was inducted in the program way back in 2002. The victory tasted even sweeter as the women had returned empty handed from the Glasgow edition four years ago.
It was only the second table tennis team gold for India at the Games with the men achieving the feat in the 2006 Melbourne edition.
Congrats Indian womens TT Team. First ever GOLD medal at the CWG. Brilliant performance by all the girls especially #ManikaBatra @GC2018 #gc2018tabletennis. Making us proud 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/6M1u5uhRnJ
— Viren Rasquinha (@virenrasquinha) April 8, 2018
Earlier on Sunday (April 8), India had blanked England 3-0 to reach the women's team final for the second time. While Batra was the architect of India's historic win, the experienced pairing of Madhurika Patkar and Mouma Das played the supporting role to perfection by winning the crucial doubles tie 3-1 (11-7 11-6 8-11 11-7) against Zhou and Mengyu Yu for a 2-1 lead in the final.
Congratulations to the Golden Girls - Manika Batra, Madhurika Patkar & Mouma Das - for bagging India's first ever Women's Table Tennis Team GOLD at Commonwealth Games..stupendous achievement #GC2018 #PresidentKovind
— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) April 8, 2018
After Batra shocked Feng 3-2 (11-8 8-11 7-11 11-9 11-7) in the opening singles, Mengyu had equalized for Singapore with a straight game win over Patkar. Batra then proved to be too good for Yihan, who failed to read her deceptive strokes. The Singaporean put a back hand long as the Indian completed a 3-0 (11-7 11-4 11-7), leading to wild celebrations.