India’s women’s challenge in table tennis ended with Manika Batra and Sutirtha Mukherjee losing to their higher-ranker opponents at the Olympics in Tokyo on Monday.
Batra’s impressive campaign in the women’s singles came to an end with a 0-4 loss to 10th seed Sofia Polcanova in the third round.
The star Indian player, who had stunned world No 32 on Sunday, did not have the game to challenge the attacking left-hander from Austria.
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Mukherjee was no challenge to 42-year-old Yu Fu as the China-born bested her in straight sets in the women’s singles second round.
The only Indian left in the fray, Sharath Kamal, faces reigning Olympic champion Ma Long of China in the third round on Tuesday.
Mukherjee lost her second round match to Portugal’s Yu Fu in straight games to exit her first Olympics.
The 98th-ranked Indian who showed remarkable grit for a come-from-behind win over Sweden’s Linda Bergstrom, looked completely off-colour to lose 3-11 3-11 5-11 5-11 in a 23-minute affair against the world No 55.
Mukherjee just managed just two points on her serve to lose the first game in no time. She took a timeout when trailing 1-4 in the third game to talk to her coach Soumyadeep Roy, seemingly to upset the rhythm of Yu Fu but the veteran remained unaffected.
Inputs from PTI
