Tokyo: Indian fencing star Bhavani Devi gave a good account of herself in her Round of 32 game loss to France’s Manon Brunet.
The French fencer, ranked No. 3 in the world, defeated the Tamilnadu-based Bhavani Devi 15-7.
Bhavani Devi can come back with her head held high after impressing everyone with her aggressive gameplay against a much-fancied opponent.
This will be a learning experience for the Chennai girl as she looks to reach greater heights in the sport.
With fencing not being a common sport in India, Bhavani Devi’s biggest achievement at the Olympics would be making people aware of the sport.
Earlier in the day, Bhavani Devi became the first Indian fencer ever to win an Olympic game after her brilliant 15-3 win against Tunisian Nadia Ben Azizi. With Bhavani’s loss, the Indian fencing campaign at the Olympics has come to an end.
Sharath Kamal advances
Sharath Kamal defeated Portugal’s Tiago Apolinia 4-2 in the second round of men’s singles Table Tennis at the Tokyo Olympics on Monday. He also became the second paddler to advance to the third round after Manika Batra.
He took the lead in the third set 2-1. Although the match was toe to toe in the sixth set, Sharath turned it around and won three-in-a row in this best of seven encounter to progress to the next round. The spotlight was on his sleek backhand as he took the match 4-2.
Sutirtha knocked out
Chinese-born Portuguese paddler Fu Yu thoroughly outclassed Sutirtha Mukherjee in straight sets in the 2nd round of the women’s singles table tennis event here in Tokyo. The 25-year-old Indian had no answer to Fu Yu’s returns as she succumbed to the pressure.
Fresh from a sensational comeback in her last game, Sutirtha could not carry her form from her last game.
She started with a lot of errors and continual adjustments in her game throughout the game stopped her from gaining any sort of momentum. This gave the match in Fu Yu’s hands and she took it with open arms.
Dismal show by archers
Indian archers faltered at crucial moments against the mighty Koreans to make a quarterfinal exit from the men’s team event at the Tokyo Olympics, here on Monday. After beating Kazakhstan 6-2, the Indian trio of Atanu Das, Pravin Jadhav, and Tarundeep Rai lost in straight sets against the top seeds at the Yumenoshima Park.
The Korean team of Kim Je Deok, Oh Jin Hayek, and Kim Woojin were on song in the first two sets, shooting 10 perfect 10s out of 12 to apply early pressure.
Satwiksairaj and Chirag ousted
Indian duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost 13-21, 12-21 to Indonesia’s Marcus Gideon and Kevin Sukamuljo in the second round of men’s doubles Badminton at Tokyo Olympics. The Satwiksairaj-Chirag pair had a thrilling start to their maiden Olympic games by beating World No 3 Yang Lee and Chi-Lin Wang.