Singles star Manika Batra won two matches as India’s women’s table tennis team upset favourites Singapore to clinch its maiden Gold medal at the 21st<\/p>\n
Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Singapore came into this match as the defending champions and have won the event at every edition since it was first introduced in 2002 while India’s best<\/p>\n
display was a runner-up finish in Delhi in 2010.<\/p>\n
Unperturbed by the status of their opposition, Indian paddlers played valiantly till the end to taste the gold.<\/p>\n
In the first rubber, World No.58 Batra upset World No.4 Tianwei Feng 3-2 (11-8, 8-11, 7-11, 11-9, 11-7) to take the 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
In all the five close games, Batra held her nerves and stood up to the pressure situation. At one point she had no answers to her opponents’ questions but then<\/p>\n
she rebuilt her strategy and played sensibly till the end.<\/p>\n
The second game saw Singapore bouncing back in style. Mengyu Yu outplayed Madhurika Patkar (3-0) 13-11, 11-2, 11-6 in straight games to equalise. The<\/p>\n
Indian player, however, attacked and played some furious forehands but that was not enough to win the game as her opponent possessed superior technical<\/p>\n
skills.<\/p>\n
In the third match, doubles pair of Mouma Das and Patkar played attacking game throughout to seal the issue 3-1 (11-7, 11-6, 8-11, 11-7) against Mengyu and<\/p>\n
Yihan Zhou and hand India a 2-1 crucial advantage.<\/p>\n
At some stages of the game, Yu-Zhou appeared to recover from their slow starts but aggressive counter attacking game from the Indian duo helped them<\/p>\n
outplaying their opponents.<\/p>\n
India were now ahead 2-1 and they only have to win their next match to clinch the medal.<\/p>\n
India’s best ranked player assigned for her job, Batra did it in style by applying pressure with an attacking approach which saw her outscoring Yihan (3-0) 11-7,<\/p>\n
11-4, 11-7 in straight games.<\/p>\n
Earlier, India thrashed England 3-0 in the semi-final to enter the gold medal match of the prestigious meet.<\/p>\n
Seasoned campaigner Batra gave India an early 1-0 lead after bouncing back from one game down to beat Kelly Sibley 9-11, 11-7, 11-5, 11-7 in the first<\/p>\n
singles tie and Patkar doubled India’s lead after overcoming a stiff contest from Tin-Tin Ho to win 11-7, 13-11, 10-12, 11-8 in the second singles match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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