Queen Bee of TT

Manika Batra won gold in table tennis women’s singles at the 2018 Commonwealth Games (CWG), becoming the first Indian woman to do so.

When and where was Manika Batra born? Manika was born on June 15, 1995. She hails from Delhi. When did she take up table tennis?

She took up the sport at the age of four after watching her two older siblings play the game. When she won a match in an under-8 state-level tournament, her father appointed Sandeep Gupta as her coach. At 15, Manika won the silver medal in her first national level competition. She left college soon after to dedicate her career to table tennis.

What were her early achievements?

In 2011, she won the silver medal in the under21 category of ITTF pro-tour Chile Open. She claimed several international junior titles to become the only Indian in the top 100 of the world junior (U-18) and youth (U-21) sections.

Manika has raked in medals at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships (2015) and later at the 2016 South Asian Games. She qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics in the women’s singles event, but did not progress beyond the first round. How did she fare at the 2018 CWG in Gold Coast, Australia? She won medals in all the events she participated in, making her the most successful Indian athlete at CWG. She became the first Indian woman to bag the table tennis individual gold medal, by beating Yu Mengyu of Singapore. She won a silver medal in the women’s doubles with Mouma Das and a bronze medal in the mixed doubles with G. Sathiyan. She also played a leading role in the women’s team gold medal win. What is her current ranking?

Manika is the top-ranking Indian female player and is currently ranked World No. 58.