Khel Ratna awardee Manika Batra has turn out to be a family title after her efficiency at Paris Olympics. Here is a take a look at the desk tennis participant’s 15-year-long profession.
The hearts of numerous Indians swelled with delight as Manika Batra made historical past on 29 July, 2024, by changing into the primary Indian desk tennis participant to succeed in the spherical of 16 within the Olympic Video games singles competitors.
Her victory got here after a 4-0 thrashing of Prithika Pavade of France. What provides to the joys is that Manika is presently ranked twenty eighth on the planet, 10 locations decrease than Pavade. She secured her victory with sport scores of 11-9, 11-6, 11-9, and 11-7 towards her French opponent of Indian origin.
After securing the title of the primary Indian desk tennis participant to succeed in Olympics pre-quarterfinals, Manika mirrored via a publish on Instagram, “Reaching the pre-quarterfinals of the Ladies’s Singles in Olympics has been a milestone, however I all the time need extra. So long as I’ve a dream, an purpose, I’ll hold doing my greatest.”
The 29-year-old hails from Delhi and is the youngest of three siblings. On the younger age of 4, she was launched to the game by her sister, Aanchal, and brother Sahil, each of whom additionally performed desk tennis. It turned clear that she was destined for greatness when she gained a state-level under-8 match, prompting her to coach beneath coach Sandeep Gupta at Hans Raj Mannequin College.
Manika’s rise to fame started with a silver medal within the under-21 class on the 2011 Chile Open. She additionally achieved quarterfinal finishes whereas representing India on the 2014 Commonwealth Video games in Glasgow and the 2014 Asian Video games.
Her breakthrough arrived on the 2015 Commonwealth Desk Tennis Championships, the place she gained three medals, together with silver within the ladies’s crew and doubles occasions and bronze in singles.
Regardless of her achievements, Manika grew up listening to, “Desk tennis is a waste of time, be a health care provider or engineer as an alternative.” Rising up in Delhi, her kin taunted her for selecting sports activities as a profession. However her mom, Sushma Batra, had full religion in her daughter’s dream to play for India, whereas her father is her cheerleader.
With restricted means, they struggled to afford the gear and make the preparations for tournaments, but her mom saved encouraging Manika. “Folks requested me why she is losing her time in sport, however I all the time thought that sports activities had potential. She has confirmed me proper,” her mom stated.
The 2018 Asian Video games noticed Manika safe three gold medals in ladies’s doubles and girls’s crew occasions. That very same yr, she certified for the Rio Olympics however was defeated within the first spherical.
Manika’s most important achievement got here on the 2018 Commonwealth Video games in Gold Coast, Australia, the place she led India to a historic gold medal within the ladies’s crew occasion, defeating the dominant Singapore crew. She additionally gained India’s first-ever silver medal in ladies’s doubles and claimed a monumental gold within the singles occasion, bringing house 4 medals.
In 2018, she was honoured with the Arjuna Award, India’s second-highest sporting honour. Two years later, in 2020, she achieved the head of nationwide sports activities recognition by receiving the Khel Ratna, the nation’s highest sporting honour.
In subsequent years, Manika continued her success, profitable crew gold on the 2019 Commonwealth Desk Tennis Championships. Her achievement of changing into the primary paddler to succeed in spherical of 16 surpasses her earlier report on the Tokyo Olympics, the place she turned the primary Indian ladies’s desk tennis participant to succeed in the spherical of 32 in singles.
In the identical Tokyo Video games, Achanta Sharath Kamal had additionally reached the spherical of 32 within the males’s singles.
In 2021, she gained the WTT Contender Budapest blended doubles and the WTT Contender Lasko ladies’s doubles. She competed within the inaugural WTT Grand Smash occasion in Singapore in 2022 and achieved a career-high rating of world quantity 4 in ladies’s doubles with Archana Girish Kamath.
Manika aspires to do for desk tennis in India what PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal did for badminton within the nation. “Like desk tennis, badminton wasn’t so well-known (in India),” Manika stated. “However the quantity of recognition they’ve for the game, I might additionally prefer to take desk tennis to better heights in India.”
While desk tennis was her past love, Manika turned down modelling gives in her teenagers to focus on the game. Her dedication has not solely introduced her private success however has additionally impressed a era of younger desk tennis gamers in India.
Her laurels certainly make her a real icon of Indian desk tennis.
Edited by Padmashree Pande.
