Manika, Sutirtha off to winning starts

Manika returned to beat 94th-ranked Tin-Tin Ho of Britain 4-0 in her singles opener while Sutirtha made a strong impression on her Olympics debut with a come from behind 4-3 win against 78th-ranked Linda Bergstrom of Sweden.

Tokyo: India’s slim hopes for a table tennis medal in mixed doubles vanished in no time but Manika Batra and Sutirtha Mukherjee made promising starts to their women’s singles campaign at the Tokyo Olympics here on Saturday.

The start to India’s table tennis campaign was disappointing with Sharath Kamal and Manika losing 0-4 to the third seeds Lin Yun-Ju and Cheng I-Ching of Chinese Taipei in the mixed doubles round of 16.

However, world number 62 Manika returned to beat 94th-ranked Tin-Tin Ho of Britain 4-0 in her singles opener while 98th-ranked Sutirtha made a strong impression on her Olympics debut with a come from behind 4-3 win against 78th-ranked Linda Bergstrom of Sweden. Mukherjee play Portugal’s Fu Yu in the second round while Manika takes on Ukrain’s Margaryta Pesotska, who is ranked 32.

Also read: Tokyo Olympics: Manika Batra cruises into next round of women’s singles

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