Tokyo Olympics 2020: Paddler Manika Batra comes from behind to enter Round 3; Sathiyan bows out

Indian paddler Manika Batra (Source: Twitter)

India paddler Manika Batra came back from two games down to earn a sensational win over Ukraine's Margaryta Pesotska in the second round of the women's singles table tennis event at the Tokyo Olympics on Sunday. Batra defeated Margaryta Pesotska 4-3 in Round 2 of the women's singles event and as a result, she has progressed to Round 3. The entire match lasted for 57 minutes.

Manika rallied from 0-2 down to secure a 4-11, 4-11, 11-7, 12-10, 8-11, 11-5, 11-7 victory over Margaryta.

Amazing news folks:
Star Indian paddler Manika Batra upset higher ranked Margaryta Pesotska (WR 32) 4-3 in 2nd round.
Next she will take on World No. 16 Sofia Polcanova for a place in Pre-QF. #Tokyo2020withIndia_AllSports pic.twitter.com/Hhv1BGB7UE — India_AllSports (@India_AllSports) July 25, 2021

Ukraine's Pesotska won Game 1 quite comprehensively and this put pressure on Manika pretty early on and she was left with all to do in the following games to progress further in the women's singles event.

Pesotska displayed her class in the following Game, and she won it 11-4, and she needed just two more wins to progress to the next round.

Batra staged a comeback in Games 3 and 4, bringing the match into an exciting position. The match went back and forth, and as a result, the match was evenly poised at 3-3 and it went into the decider.

The Indian dominated in the final game and against all odds and she progressed to Round 3.

Meanwhile, India paddler Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, on Sunday, bowed out of the men's singles event after losing to Hong Kong's Lam Siu Hang at Tokyo Metropolitan Gym -- Table 4 in the ongoing Tokyo Olympics.

Sathiyan, the world No. 26, took three of the first four sets before losing the next three to crash out 7-11, 11-7, 11-4, 11-5, 9-11, 10-12 and 6-11 to Hang, ranked 95th in the world. The match lasted an hour and three minutes.