Paris 2024: Manika Batra scripts history, becomes first Indian to reach round of 16 at Olympics in table tennis

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Paris 2024: Manika Batra on Monday scripted history by becoming the first India table tennis player to qualify for the round of 16 in the table tennis event at Olympics.

The 29-year-old star paddler was in her zone from the very beginning and breezed past 19-year-old Prithika Pavade of France to register a 4-0 win in less than one hour.

Local favourite Pavade had a huge backing of fans, but Batra stayed unperturbed and brought in all her experience to make the nation proud late on Monday night. The 2018 Commonwealth Games gold-medallist won 11-9 11-6 11-9 11-7 against the higher-ranked opponent.

Notably, the parents of Pavade migrated from Puducherry in India to France in 2003. She was born a year later in 2004. She was seeded 12th at Paris Olympics - six more than 18th seed Manika Batra, who was all smiles after the historic win. Also, Manika is currently ranked 28th in the world, 10 places lower than Pavade.

However, that did not matter to Batra who looked unstoppable with his rock solid defence game. Pavade played some attacking shots, but Batra was electric with her backhand flicks. Batra holding her nerves after losing a series of points and then successfully winning the game was also the highlight of the match.

In the Tokyo Olympics, Manika had become the first women's table tennis player from India to make it to the round of 32 in singles. Achanta Sharath Kamal had also reached the round of 32 in men's singles in the Tokyo Olympics.

But Sharath Kamal, who was India's flag-bearer at the Paris Olympics 2024 opening ceremony, crashed out of the men's singles table tennis event after losing 2-4 (12-10, 9-11, 6-11, 7-11, 11-8, 10-12) to Slovenia's Deni Kozul on Sunday. Harmeet Desai also lost his round of 64 match.

Sreeja Akula will be in action in women's singles round of 32 against Sweden's Christina Källberg on Wednesday, July 31.