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Sreeja Akula in motion© AFP
Sreeja Akula rallied to enter the pre-quarterfinals after a hard-fought 4-2 win over Singapore’s Jian Zeng in a girls’s singles spherical of 32 match as Indian desk tennis continued to make historical past on the Paris Olympics on Wednesday. On her twenty sixth birthday, Sreeja gained the match 9/11 12-10 11-4 11-5 10-12 12-10 to hitch compatriot Manika Batra within the pre-quarterfinals, an unprecedented feat within the historical past of Indian desk tennis. She misplaced the opening recreation however fought again strongly to emerge because the winner within the contest, which lasted 51 minutes.
Batra had made the pre-quarters on Monday.
Sreeja will tackle China’s world primary Solar Yingsha within the pre-quarterfinals.
Having misplaced the primary hame, Sreeja rode her luck to win the second and restore parity. She was a bit lucky to take the second recreation as she made fairly numerous errors and squandered a three-point result in permit Zeng claw again into the sport and take it to tie-breakers.
Emboldened by the comeback, a assured Seeja produced a dominant present to simply pocket the third recreation and place herself in a powerful place to advance to the subsequent spherical.
The Indian primary continued in the identical vein within the fourth recreation and gained it with out a lot issue. The participant from Singapore supplied some resistance and bagged the fifth recreation.
However, Sreeja held her nerves to seal the deal in her favour within the sixth recreation.
Final month, Sreeja achieved a career-high world rating of No. 24, displacing Batra as India’s prime girls’s singles participant.
Sreeja, a two-time nationwide champion, scripted historical past by successful the WTT Contender singles title in Lagos in June.
On the 2022 Commonwealth Video games in Birmingham, she gained the gold medal within the combined doubles occasion with Sharath Kamal.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
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