India’s Asian Video games doubles medallist Ayhika Mukherjee was again to her giant-killing methods in singles, beating World No 8 Shin Yubin of Korea within the crew quarterfinals of Asian Championships desk tennis at Astana, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday.
In a surprising blitz, Ayhika twice parried off Shin’s comebacks, to win 11-9, 7-11, 12-10, 7-11, 11-7.
Enjoying the primary match of the tie in opposition to second-seeded crew Korea, Ayhika was fielded to play the primary singles – dealt the hardest participant of the deck. Shin is a 20-year-old Korean whiz who reached the semifinals of Paris Olympics.
Korea have two essential gamers, Shin and Jeon Jijhee who’s World no.16, and the audacious paddler from Bengal was tasked with enjoying the primary match in order that Manika Batra may get a winnable matchup in opposition to Jeon to double the factors.
India’s highest-ranked ranked Sreeja Akula, acquired the better match as she was easing again into competitors, after getting back from damage.
Ayhika would battle again from 2-8 down within the essential third recreation to win it 12-10. Ignored of the Olympics the place Archana Kamath was in her place, Ayhika, who received Asiad doubles bronze with state mate Sutirtha Mukherjee, was decided to show the battle is burning in her.
Ayhika was in a position to defend Shin’s forehand assaults with the actually troublesome backhand slices. What was spectacular as at all times was her calmness underneath stress. She caught to her gameplan of attacking solely when the chance arose.
She didn’t take any pointless dangers however due to her anti-spin rubber, she performs her photographs near the web which generally attracts her opponent into enjoying it lengthy. That’s when she will get a possibility to show and unleash her forehand topspin.
When attacking with the backhand, she goes throughout, making the opponent stretch. A shorter participant like Shin struggled with that.
Manika was on the desk, with scores degree at 2-2 within the best-of-5 format with all singles.