Manika wins historic gold in table tennis

Gold Coast, April 14: A marauding Manika Batra created history by becoming the first Indian woman to win a table tennis singles gold at the Commonwealth Games while Sharath Kamal and G. Sathiyan settled for silver, here on Saturday.

World no. 58 Batra blanked 50th-ranked Yu Mengyu of Singapore 11-7, 11-6, 112, 11-7 in a one-sided final after a memorable semi-final win over world no. 4 Feng Tianwei.

The Delhi-based paddler showed that her crucial victory against multiple Olympic medallist Feng in the team final was no fluke as she edged out the Singaporean 4-3 (1210, 5-11, 11-8, 5-11, 511, 11-9, 13-11) in the semis.

India have already recorded their bestever showing in table tennis at CWG, winning three gold, two silver and a bronze.

Kamal did his best against Nigeria’s 26thranked Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri in the singles semi-finals before going down 1012, 9-11, 9-11, 7-11. SAINA, SINDHU IN FINAL, India’s badminton queens P.V. Sindhu and Saina Nehwal set up a much-anticipated women’s singles summit clash after winning their respective semifinals in contrasting fashion.

Sindhu knocked out defending champion Michelle Li 21-18, 21-8 in just 26 minutes while former world no. 1 Saina had to dig deep to beat 2014 silver medallist Kristy Gilmour 21-14, 18-21, 21-17. Newly-crowned world no. 1 Kidambi Srikanth progressed to the men’s final, defeating 2010 Games silver medallist Rajiv Ouseph of England 2110 21-17.

However, three-time Olympic silver medallist Lee Chong Wei prevented