Manika Batra wins National Table Tennis Title

Manika Batra has won the 82nd Senior National Table Tennis Championship. She beaten Reeth Rishya by 8-11, 10-12, 11-1, 11-9, 11-5, 11-6 at the Tau Devi Lal Sports Complex in Panchkula.

Highlights

• Batra will now compete at two WTT Contender events which will start on February 28.
• This will be followed by the World Olympic qualifiers and Asian Olympic qualifiers in Doha which is scheduled for March 14 and 18 respectively.

Manika Batra

She is an Indian table tennis player. She is the top-ranked female table tennis player as of November 2020. She ranked 63rd in world.  The player specialises in playing the long-pimples on her backhand. It is not often played by top players. In 2020, she also received the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award.

Her achievements

• She won silver medal in the under-21 category of the Chile Open in 2011.
• She also represented India in 2014 Commonwealth Games at Glasgow. She finished to the quarterfinalist.
• She also took part in 2014 Asian Games.
• in 2015, She won three medals at Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships.
• In 2018 she was the only Indian who received “The Breakthrough Star Award” by ITTF.
• Though, in 2020, she could not secure position in Women’s Team event at the Tokyo Olympics for India.

Table tennis in India

It is a popular indoor recreation sport in the country. It mostly played in the states of West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Table Tennis Federation of India is the official sports body of this sports. India’s Men’s Team are ranked 10th in the world while Women’s team ranked 22^nd, as of 2019.

Month: Current Affairs - February, 2021