In the upcoming quarters on Thursday, Indian table tennis player Manika Batra will face off against Japan’s world No. 5 Hina Hayata. Hayata is a former Asian champion and a multiple World Championships medallist, having won twice in their previous encounters.
Manika has had an impressive career so far, with her recent victory at the Saudi Smash 2024 tournament being her biggest achievement yet. In this tournament, she defeated world No. 2 and former world champion Wang Manyu from China to advance to the round of 16. Prior to this win, she also defeated world No. 57 Andreea Dragoman of Romania in the opening round.
With her recent performance at the Saudi Smash event, Manika’s ranking as India’s top-ranked women’s singles player has been challenged by Sreeja Akula. However, if she can reclaim her spot as India’s No. 1 player and improve upon her current best single rank of 33, it will be a major milestone in her career.
India has already seen several of its players eliminated from the competition at the Saudi Smash event. Sharath Kamal and Sreeja Akula were knocked out in the first round of the men’s and women’s singles respectively, while both men’s and women’s doubles teams were defeated in the second round by Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah for men and Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee for women respectively. The mixed doubles pair of Harmeet Desai and Yashaswini Ghorpade were also eliminated in the quarter-finals. The Saudi Smash event is set to conclude on Saturday with a final match between Manika Batra and Hina Hayata expected to be one of the most exciting matches of the tournament.
In summary, Manika Batra is set to face Japan’s world No. 5 Hina Hayata in the quarters on Thursday at Saudi Smash tournament which will be one of most exciting matches of tournament . She has been performing well lately which has put pressure on current number one ranked woman players like Sreeja Akula who have been challenged by manikas recent performances that may result in manikas reclaiming his spot as indias no1 table tennis player