Manika Batra and G Sathiyan end India’s journey at Macau World Table Tennis Championship; they bow out in first round

Indian contingent suffers huge blows in the first round of the Macau 2022. Their two heavy weights Manika Batra and G Sathiyan failed to make it past the first round in singles category.

The women’s singles was played between Batra and Japan’s Miyuu Kihara. She was the world number 15. But that didn’t discount the fact that she could pack a punch.

Manika Batra suffered defeat against Miyuu Kihara

And that is what she exactly did in her first game against Batra. Kihara came out strong and sent Batra on the backfoot right from the get go. She didn’t believe in long rallies and some of her smashes were too much to handle.

As a result, she registered a clean 11-7 victory to claim the set. 

Manika Batra made a comeback in the second set though. She played a dominating hand in the earlier stages to take a huge lead. But Kihara came back into the game and levelled the contest at 7-7. Batra was determined to not lose it though and hence registered a 11-9 victory.

This victory of Batra pushed the match into the third set where Kihara was on top. The Japanese completely dominated the preceding and beat Batra by 11-4. It was a similar story in the final set as well, where Batra failed to turn up and ended up losing by another 11-4.

Batra suffered a massive defeat by the margin of 3-1 in her opening fixture. And had to bow out of Macau 2022.

Gnanasekar Sathiyan’s untimely dismissal from Macau 2022

In his opening fixture of the tournament, Gnanasekaran Sathiyan was faced with a tough challenge in the form of Germany’s Qiu Dang.

The first set of the game started with little to choose between the two players. It was Gnanasekaran who drew the first blood in the match. But once Dang got the lead there was no going back for him. The German ended up winning the first set 11-6.

In the second set Sathiyan showed some groovy moves. But they too account to another as Dand raced on to another landsliding victory by 11-7.

The final set was the closest of them all. Sathian finally took the lead for the first tie in the content. However, once again Dang was just too good for his Indian counterpart. As a result, he won the game 11-9.

It was a huge loss for the Indian Tabble Tennis team. One from which they will be hoping to overcome in the coming times.