Tokyo Olympics, Day 2: India loses medal hope in TT Mixed Doubles as Sharath-Manika face crushing defeat against Chinese Taipei

They lost the penultimate third set 5-11 and the dream of clinching a medal was lost in the 4th where they suffered a crushing defeat.

Tokyo:India's Table Tennis mixed doubles pair of Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra on Saturday faced a crushing defeat against Chinese Taipei -- Lin Yun-Ju and Cheng I-Ching -- on Saturday in their Round of 16 clash and probably lost the only medal hope in the sport.

The duo had a poor start and failed to revive the game as their game went down after every set.

The Indian duo made a brilliant start in the first game as they were leading 5-1 but couldn't hold on to it against their third seeded opponent. Second game witnessed a similar trajectory with Manika and Sharath leading 5-3. However, a clearly superior Chinese Taipei side made their shots count and defeated the Indian pair 1-8, 11-6, 11-5, 11-4.

The power of 19-year-old Lin from both flanks was too much to handle for the 12th seeded pairing of Sharath and Manika, who came into the Olympics having won the qualifying competition.

On the other hand, Lin's top-spins drives puzzled the Indian duo and they couldn't come up with any response against him.

Manika did trouble Lin and Cheng whenever she could use her long pimpled rubber but the Chinese Taipei duo had come well prepared and did not let the top women's paddler to play her game.

The first round was the only glimmer of hope for the Indian when they were leading 5-1 but Lin and Cheng won crucial eight consecutive points as it served a huge morale booster for them.

Sharath and Manika had practised at the national camp for just three days ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Sharath failed to get visa to practice outside India due to the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

Mixed doubles seemed to be India's only medal hope after their brilliant display in the qualifying event.

Manika and Sutirtha Mukherjee will play their women's singles first round matches later on Saturday.

(With inputs from PTI)