India’s top table tennis player and Commonwealth Games medallist Manika Batra will face Britain’s Anna Hursey in the opening round of the women’s singles event while experienced men’s player Achanta Sharath Kamal will take on Slovenia’s Danny Kozul. The draw was announced on Wednesday.
Manika is seeded 18th and this is her third consecutive Olympics. She became the first Indian female table tennis player to reach the round of 32 in singles at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. In men’s singles, Harmeet Desai will face Jordan’s Abo Yemen in the first round, while 25-year-old Sreeja Akula (seeded 16th) will start her campaign against Sweden’s Kristina Kalberg in the women’s category.
Commonwealth Games champion Sharath Kamal is leading India’s table tennis team, in which the 41-year-old player will be playing for the fifth time in the Olympics. G Sathiyan could not make it to the main team, so he has been selected as a ‘reserve’ player. He has been a member of India’s gold medal-winning men’s team at the 2018 and 2022 Commonwealth Games.
In the opening match of the women’s team event, 11th seeded India will face fourth seeded Romania. The winning team will directly reach the quarterfinals. Recently Manika reached her career-best ranking of 24th. Apart from Manika and Sreeja, the third member of the women’s team is Archana Kamat. Ayhika Mukherjee is the reserve player.
The Indian men’s team, which includes Sharath Kamal, Manav Thakkar and national champion Harmeet, will face top-ranked China in the opening round. India will participate in the team event for the first time at the Paris Olympics. Men’s and women’s team events in table tennis were introduced at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
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